Qualcomm has once again hit the personal computer processor market.
On October 25th, Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon X Elite processor at the Snapdragon Summit. This is the first processor of the Snapdragon X series, which is aimed at the personal computer market. At the meeting, Qualcomm CEO Amon compared the performance of this chip with products from Intel and Apple. In the global mobile phone market, Qualcomm processors occupy a dominant position, and now it is once again crossing the border, with the goal of taking away Intel and AMD's share in the computer processor market.
This is not easy.
It will definitely be quite difficult
Anmeng stated that Qualcomm's ultimate goal in designing a personal computer processor is to set a new benchmark for the industry and bring better performance to Windows PCs.
Qualcomm has also launched processors for the personal computer market before, but they have not caused much controversy. This year, Qualcomm renamed its computer processor Snapdragon X series, marking a new departure.
Qualcomm's decision to rename it to distinguish it from the existing mobile phone market chips is actually telling everyone: I attach great importance to this aspect now and will take it out separately to create a product series, "Counterpoint Senior Analyst Li Jingyun told reporters from First Financial.
The core technical team of this Snapdragon X Elite comes from Nuvia, and it could have been released earlier.
Snapdragon X Elite is based on the Arm architecture. But last year, Qualcomm and Arm had a lawsuit. In March 2022, Qualcomm completed the acquisition of chip design company Nuvia for $1.4 billion, which was established by a former executive in Apple's chip business. But later, Arm sued Qualcomm, claiming that after acquiring Nuvia, it "abused" Arm's intellectual property license to Nuvia. Subsequently, Qualcomm filed a counterclaim against Arm.
The back-and-forth lawsuit has affected the chip launch process. Due to litigation, there may be some technical issues that have not been fully resolved yet, "Li Jingyun said. The chip, which was supposed to be launched last year, has been delayed until this year. Although it's late, it will eventually arrive. Qualcomm is also going to make AI PCs
This chip is intended to break through the x86 architecture processor market, and the company that has already done so is Apple. Apple has a wide product line, and its phone chips are based on the Arm architecture, as are computer processors.
Qualcomm's chip has a higher difficulty in opening up the market, as it does not have Apple's vast terminal product line. Whether the Qualcomm X series can gain market recognition largely depends on whether it can provide differentiated performance that is different from Intel and AMD products, and also depends on how major computer manufacturers such as Lenovo, HP, and Dell choose.
It is faster than industry-leading x86 CPUs, "Anmeng compared the performance of this chip with Intel products. Anmeng claims that its single threaded performance surpasses the Core i9-13980HX processor designed specifically for high-performance gaming terminals; Under the same performance, Snapdragon X Elite can reduce energy consumption by 70%.
This chip is expected to appear on Lenovo Group's next generation PC.
Lenovo has previously collaborated with Qualcomm. It launched its first ThinkPad X13s using an Arm processor in February 2022, equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx chip. This product is currently priced at 7999 yuan on JD.com. However, the official flagship store of ThinkPad on JD.com has a sales volume of over 100, which is not as good as the ThinkPad X13, which is equipped with Intel processors in the same price range.
Qualcomm is the leading enterprise in mobile phone processors, with China's Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, and South Korea's Samsung phones being its major customers. But in recent years, the mobile phone market has been sluggish, with global smartphone shipments declining by more than double digits throughout 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. This exceeded Qualcomm's expectations for the mobile phone market. In the second quarter of this year, Qualcomm's revenue decreased by 17% and net profit decreased by 42%.
The decline in the mobile phone market is significantly greater than that in the PC market, "said Li Jingyun
For Intel and AMD, laptops are a stock market; For Qualcomm, any cake that can be cut out means increment.
Qualcomm does not have a very favorable market share compared to Intel or AMD, and it must compete in other markets now, rather than finding a new blue ocean. "Li Jingyun predicts that Qualcomm's competition with Intel and AMD in the future will inevitably be quite difficult.
Artificial Intelligence Variables
The low tide of the personal computer market in 2022 continued into the first quarter of 2023. It was not until the second quarter that inventory digestion came to an end and there were signs of an increase in terminal demand.
Processor companies are all trying to consolidate their existing orders and see where the next wave of growth momentum will come from, "said Li Jingyun." Including Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, their main goal now is to move towards the next wave of AI PC growth
Qualcomm sees artificial intelligence as one of the performance pillars of future PC processors. Anmeng stated at the meeting that AI and generative AI are redefining PCs. The Snapdragon X Elite released this time can support a large language model with 13 billion parameters.
Intel disclosed its "AI PC Acceleration Program" on October 19th. This plan aims to connect independent hardware and software suppliers to form a thriving AI PC ecosystem around their processors. Intel expects that this plan "will bring AI features to over 100 million PCs by 2025".
AMD has also built an AI engine into its Raptor processor. Through the built-in independent accelerator hardware unit, AMD's Ruilong processor can perform low-intensity AI inference tasks such as audio and image processing.
Processor companies are rushing to release AI products, making it difficult for AI to become a factor that affects the market landscape in the short term.
Originally, Intel had its own AI solution, but with AMD, Qualcomm was actually slower. I think it still depends on how Intel and AMD, as well as new manufacturers specializing in AI accelerators, can improve product performance. Li Jingyun believes that if Qualcomm directly competes with existing PC server manufacturers in a short period of time, there may still be some weaknesses
Several companies, including Lenovo, Dell, and HP, are eagerly anticipating the next round of replacement cycles. They all hope that the dark clouds in the PC market will pass next year and new products will be launched after the entire demand comes up. "Li Jingyun believes that that will be the decisive moment for the next generation of PCs.
Qualcomm expects that PCs equipped with Snapdragon X Elite will be launched in mid-2024. Qualcomm named its processor after the unknown number X, perhaps understanding that the future of this product is still uncertain.