Intel and AMD will collaborate in the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group. That group is to stimulate innovation in the x86 ecosystem and arm the architecture against the rise of competitor ARM.
A surprise on stage at Lenovo Tech World in Bellevue, Washington: Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger appears on stage with words of praise for major competitor Lisa Su, CEO of AMD. “This is the first time Lisa and I have agreed on anything,” he laughs, referring to the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group.
That group brings together x86 cryptophiles to accelerate innovation around the architecture. Members still include Broadcom, Dell, Google, HP, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Het and, of course, Lenovo.
Key partners
“You heard it before from one of our key partners, Intel,” Su joked a few minutes later on the same stage. “AMD and Intel are bringing together all the major x86 players to accelerate speed of innovation. That illustrates what a unique era we are living in today.”
Su is referring mainly to the impact of AI. “We are still in the early stages of AI, but the speed of innovation is unprecedented. The last two years have seen more progress than the previous 10,” she observes. x86 is at the forefront of that innovation it sounds, and the new x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group should support that.
Pressure from ARM
Gelsinger is a little more transparent about what is presumably the real driving force behind the group. “Rumors of my by are greatly exaggerated,” Gelsinger says, referring to the rise of the ARM architecture. He, too, points to the fact that x86 is at the root of decades of innovation.
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ARM is breaking through, however, both in the server world and now in the laptop segment. Indeed, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips have been powering excellent laptops with fantastic battery autonomy since this year. ARM has some strong strengths compared to x86. That brings Intel and AMD together: they are the only two companies (allowed) to develop x86 chips, and thus have every interest in demonstrating the relevance of the architecture into the future.
Focus on x86
Specifically, the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group wants to support three things. Literally:
- Increase customers’ choice and compatibility in hardware and software, while allowing them to take advantage of new, advanced features faster.
- Simplify architectural guidelines to improve software consistency and standardize interfaces between x86 products from Intel and AMD.
- Enable more and more efficient integration of new capabilities into operating systems, frameworks and applications.
“x86 will go through a period of expansion and adaptability,” Gelsinger said of it. Stakeholders for the x86 architecture thus seem to have closed ranks.
This is good news: it is to no one’s advantage that one architecture or the other wins. In an ideal scenario, they coexist, driving each other’s innovation. The x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group, which brings together Intel and AMD as historical partners, is thus a first visible result of the new competition.