In a few days, the first shipments of Copilot Plus PCs with Qualcomm chips will be shipped worldwide. The arm can still put a stick between its own wheels.

June 18, 2024 will go down in history as the official launch of the Copilot Plus PC. In exactly six days, the first laptops with a Qualcomm X chip will hit the market (see our overview per brand).

But the future still looks uncertain. Analysts from the chip and PC industry are worried about a legal dispute between Arm and Qualcomm, as Reuters picked up during the Computex trade fair.

Dispute over license

The dispute has been ongoing since 2022 and concerns Qualcomm’s acquisition of Nuvia. Like Qualcomm, Nuvia was a customer of Arm’s chip design and Qualcomm is said to have used its designs in the design of the Snapdragon X Elite processor. However, Arm claims that Qualcomm was not allowed to automatically take over Nuvia’s license after the acquisition without first negotiating a new contract with them.

The trial is expected to begin in December and the consequences could potentially be serious. If Arm is right, it could force PCs with a Snapdragon X chip to no longer be sold. Analyst Doug O’Laughlin told Reuters there is a “real risk” that this could happen.

Stay between your own wheels

At the same time, the irony in this conflict shines through. Arm and Qualcomm are each other’s best customers and suppliers and have closely linked their opportunities in the PC market. The Copilot Plus PCs are a unique opportunity for Arm to finally become relevant in the PC industry: previous attempts with Windows on ARM were not very successful.

CEO Rene Haas recently announced that he believes he can capture fifty percent of the Windows market. Arm would only be shooting itself in the foot if it stopped selling Qualcomm PCs. Can both parties bury the hatchet in time?

Regardless of the outcome of this dispute, the exclusive marriage between Arm and Qualcomm will most likely end soon. There are already pirates on the shore developing ARM chips: Nvidia, among others, sees the opportunity to conquer the CPU market.