Apple launched their first arm chip for the Mac mini back in 2020 and shocked the Wintel market when arm-based processors took over MacBooks and beyond. Today at Qualcomm's Computex 2024 keynote, CEO  Cristiano Amon constantly hammered home how their new Snapdragon X Elite processor was greater than Apple's M3 processor in the metrics noted in the slide below.

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In so many ways the constant mention of AI was almost abnoxious. Though I'm sure we'll hear an equal amount of AI news out of WWDC24 next Monday.

Also in the last 24 hours, the AMD keynote was interesting and more technical. They also made it clear that AMD's AI processors don't require emulation for top applications like Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite does. Games will run better on AMD processors as well.

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Yet no matter how you slice it, the entry of the Snapdragon X Elite AI centric PC's into the market is likely to completely distrupt the PC industry balance by challenging Intel and AMD over time.

A new report from Reuters this morning notes that Arm Holdings aims to gain more than 50% of the "Windows PC market" in next five years, the chip designer's CEO said, as Microsoft and its hardware partners prepare to launch a new batch of computers based on the British firm's technology.

Demand for use of Arm's technology in personal computers got a boost after Microsoft unveiled ambitious plans last month to launch a new breed of PCs with artificial intelligence features to compete with Alphabet and Apple.

Its flagship Windows operating system will now run on chips designed by Arm, whose technology powered the rise of smartphones. Chips made by Intel have dominated the PC industry for decades and if the Arm push succeeds, it would reorder the market.

"Arm's market share in Windows - I think, truly, in the next five years, it could be better than 50%," CEO Rene Haas told Reuters in an interview.

Microsoft has made a significant commitment to ensure its alternative technology to Advanced Micro Devices and Intel's x86 technology is embraced by consumers, building a suite of software developer tools to make it possible to produce programs that function on Arm-based chips.

Microsoft and hardware vendors are following in Apple's footsteps. The company has seen success from its introduction of Arm designs. It has sold machines with its "M Series" processors for roughly four years and those chips offer long battery life and speedy performance."

With Apple's success with their arm-based M-Series processors, the market share balance could overtake the x86 processor. However, I wouldn't discount AMD and Intel's progress over the next five years just yet – even though the new arm-chip AI hype is deafening.