Qualcomm CEO Amon: Will beat Apple M2 in computer chip field

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon recently said that with the expertise of three former Apple chip engineers, Qualcomm will defeat the M2 chip in the field of laptop and desktop computer chips.

Qualcomm and Intel were undoubtedly shocked when Apple's M1 chip was released, setting off a revolution in performance and energy efficiency. It had always been obvious that Apple was developing a product that could compete with Intel's best chips, but neither company expected that Apple's first generation of computer processors would be so successful.

But publicly, both companies believe they will not only catch up with Apple, but surpass it. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger once fantasized about his company taking back Apple's business. In an interview with HBO Axios, he said: "So what I have to do is make a better chip than Apple. I hope that over time, I can win back their business (referring to computer chips)."

Qualcomm also seems optimistic about the mobile chip market. Qualcomm CEO Amon told Reuters on Thursday that he believes his company can come up with the best chips on the market with the help of a chip design team that once worked on Apple's self-developed chips but now works at Qualcomm.

A series of controversial events did allow Qualcomm to poach some very senior Apple chip engineers. In 2019, Gerard Williams, the former Apple A series chip leader, and two other former Apple chip executives left the company to create a new chip company, Nuvia. The three companies said at the time that they planned to compete with Intel and AMD.

Apple didn't believe them and said their real intention was to force Apple to acquire the company, in effect buying back its own technology.

But this year, Qualcomm acquired Nuvia for $1.4 billion. This gave the chipmaker access to much of the expertise behind the development of Apple's M1 chip.

As a result, Amon told CNET that the company now believes it can beat Apple in the PC market, too: "Our goal is to achieve performance leadership in the central processing unit (CPU) segment of the PC space."

Amon said he was grateful to Apple for promoting development on the ARM architecture. In addition, regarding the rumor that Apple would develop its own 5G chips, Amon also claimed that he was not worried about the loss of this part of the business.

Apple is developing a 5G baseband and will use it in the iPhone in the future. Replacing the A-series processor is no longer a password. Qualcomm's guidance released last year was that its share of modems used in Apple devices would fall to 20% by 2023 and then to single digits.

But Amon said Qualcomm is still growing and it's not up to him whether Apple is ready to use its own modems. "They know our phone number and where to find us," he said.