Arm, renowned for its architecture behind numerous System on Chips (SoCs) used by tech giants like Qualcomm and Apple, is reportedly venturing into the graphic card (GPU) market.
An Israel-based news outlet, The Globes, reports that a company is forming a team of approximately 100 chip and software engineers at its Israel office for a significant project, according to Tom’s Hardware.
Arm’s GPU development is primarily focused on gaming. However, the potential applications extend beyond gaming, with possibilities in AI processing if the research culminates in a viable product.
Given Arm’s existing expertise with the Immortalis flagship GPU and the more affordable Mali series, which are already integrated into many SoCs, the company is well-positioned to create a competitive GPU for PCs.
These GPUs, although primarily designed for mobile devices, boast features like Ray Tracing and upscaling technology commonly found on desktop GPUs.
But will it launch a graphics card compatible with both x86 (Intel/AMD) and ARM processors, or will it develop a robust integrated graphics solution for its desktop and laptop SoCs?
Another intriguing possibility is that Arm might develop the architecture for a discrete GPU that other companies could license, potentially for use with ARM processors designed for Windows-on-Arm. Currently, most major discrete GPUs are compatible only with x86/x86-64 processors.