Intel And AMD Are Officially Frenemies To Fight Against Arm

The unthinkable has happened: Intel and AMD, two fierce rivals in the CPU market, has officially teamed up as part of the new x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group “to unite industry leaders to shape the future of x86.” While not explicitly stated by the group, it is widely known at this point the creation of this group is to counter their biggest threat – Arm.

Intel And AMD Join Forces

Aside from AMD and Intel that will be joining this new advisory group, other members include Broadcom, Dell, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP Inc., Lenovo, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle and Red Hat, plus luminaries Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) and Tim Sweeney (founder of Epic Games).

So what will be the goal of this super team of x86 chipmakers? Essentially, to further develop x86 with “a more unified set of instructions and architectural interfaces.” This reduces development friction, something that Arm has gained advantage over the years thanks to its RISC nature. CISCs like x86 often requires more complicated programming process, and both Team Blue and Team Red wants to simplify that.

There’s a saying that goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Couldn’t be more truer than that today, given that Intel and AMD, both companies that rely on the x86 architecture today, has a long history of business warfare that at one point involved antitrust challenges.

Today, AMD is thriving thanks to the massive success of Ryzen, while Intel is facing considerably challenging times as it struggles to cut costs. Either way, their very existential threat in the form of Arm architecture has been looming for years – but the recent appearance in PC market has made it impossible to ignore.

While both companies are on the same boat now, that doesn’t mean their rivalry will subside anytime soon. Forrest Norrod, EVP & GM of AMD Data Center Solutions Business Group, told Tom’s Hardware: “We’re going to remain fierce competitors.”

“You know, Justin (EVP & GM of Intel Data Center and AI Group) and I are friends first, but when we show up to work each day, we are fiercely trying to compete on behalf of our companies and ensure that our customers have compelling choices from each one of our companies. But we can compete even while we’re driving industry standards together, and there’s a rich history of Intel and AMD doing that,” he continued.

Pokdepinion: What we’re seeing is a historical moment for sure.