Warning: Opinionated piece.

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On October 15, 2024, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) and AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the creation of a new advisory group named x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group:

The group will focus on identifying new ways to expand the x86 ecosystem by enabling compatibility across platforms, simplifying software development, and providing developers with a platform to identify architectural needs and features to create innovative and scalable solutions for the future.

Well, what are we to expect from this?

Branding

Well, let’s start with the name: x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group.

Do note that there is not a single hint of openness, and, fun fact, if you attempt to search for “open”, there is not a single mention of such word in the press release.

The joint effort is solely for the ecosystem and just in time when Arm processors are slowly replacing “WinTel” in the personal computing space, and as ironic as Microsoft is in this effort, also in the Windows Server space as early as the mid-2010s.

That’s unfortunate, because with past closed architectures becoming open akin to OpenPOWER, SPARC International Inc., and MIPS Open (RIP 2018-2021), maybe I was a tad too optimistic to expect an “x86Open” effort, perhaps.

Simply put, Intel and AMD see no reason to make their x86 IPs “open”, but they both know they can make people depend on their x86-based products even more by strengthening the support of software and platforms around it, as if it wasn’t already mostly well supported.

Enhance, Choice… What Exactly?

But, if it isn’t about the core specifications, what is this really about?

Will we see a reduction in x86 licensing? Why isn’t VIA in this joint effort? Why is Broadcom, an Arm manufacturer, even there? Will Intel adopt AMD’s OpenSIL? Why isn’t there a website for this yet? Will we see open EFI solutions and more OpenBMC integration? Is this about interoperability between Intel and AMD processors? Will Intel relax or free some of their 70,000 patents? Huh, what is Tim Sweeny doing here?!

Well, let’s look at the announcement. It make a few key points:

[…] with new levels of customization, compatibility and scalability needed to meet current and future customer needs.

Pat Gelsinger

[…] provide direction on future architectural enhancements […]

Lisa Su

Looking at the bullet points:

• “Enhancing customer choice and compatibility across hardware and software, while accelerating their ability to benefit from new, cutting-edge features.“
• “Simplifying architectural guidelines to enhance software consistency and interfaces across x86 product offerings from Intel and AMD.“
• “Enabling greater and more efficient integration of new capabilities into operating systems, frameworks and applications.“

Ah, so, more or less of a collaboration in-between group members to share software and hardware solutions, that makes up the x86 ecosystem.

Ecosystems and Standards is the How & Why

And Intel is very well acquainted with ecosystems.

When the i486 released, Intel executives feared they’d lose to their competitors, and so, long story short, they decided not to support VESA’s VL-BUS, and instead made the famous PCI connector and create the ecosystem for that:

The result was that, no matter how miffed the VESA folks were, Intel had consolidated power for itself by creating an open standard that would eventually win the next generation of computers. Sure, Intel let other companies use the PCI standard, even companies like Apple that weren’t directly doing business with Intel on the CPU side. But Intel, by pushing forth PCI, suddenly made itself relevant to the entire next generation of the computing industry in a way that ensured it would have a second foothold in hardware. The “Intel Inside” marketing label was not limited to the processors, as it turned out.

As PCI turned out to be a success, it is easy to see Intel, especially after seeing Apple gearing their laptops with Arm processors, fearing to lose more of their bread and butter against a processor architecture that has been gaining popularity in these last few years, has decided to create the group to try to solidify the crumbling foundation around x86.

After all, Intel’s Client Computing Group (CCG) amounted to $7.4 billion out of their $12.8 billion net revenue this quarter, as indicated in their 2024 Q2 financial report. That’s 57.8% of their revenue stream. The same goes for AMD, where x86 products constitutes most of their revenue stream:

Other Players

Arm had gained a momentum for its power-efficient designs, low-cost license, and flexibility, and has been gaining a tad bit more by moving away from static DeviceTrees to Arm’s SystemReady (BSA and SBSA Level 3), to make Arm platforms more “PC-like”. After having a polished processor architecture, this is something that the x86 group want to fix: The ecosystem.

Even then, companies aren’t forced to choose a particular architecture. This new group is only to enhance the existing platform by nailing down vendor quirks by becoming more of a first party group, just like how, for example, Arm Holdings PLC issues compliance and enforces them, and how it provides first party tools for its architecture.

Other architectures like RISC-V, for its openness and royalty-free license, and PowerISA, seeing Solid Silicon’s S1 PowerISA 3.1 compliant processor sooner or later, have gained some momentum in the personal computing space. As opposed to the aging and vulnerable x86.

After being rather lazy for a decade, in the last few years, Intel has been playing a catching-up game with Arm, this is where Intel’s AMX (NVIDIA+Arm AI platforms) and X86-S (Armv8 removing older legacy bits) came to be, both being responses to Arm taking a leap ahead.

And to keep catching up, Intel might eventually want to replay its Standards Ecosystems card again, as Pat Gelsinger even saw first handed, as part of this catching up.

In Intel’s Two decades of “plug and play” How USB became the most successful interface in the history of computing, we probably have some history repeating itself:

This is a pretty common strategy. Better now than never, I guess!

The Ultimate Platform

Instead of creating x86 products for a market, where for example, Intel failed to push their Atom core to the early mobile market and more currently, desktop processor products. Instead, it’s likely possible that Intel wants the group to embrace and rework the current ecosystem possibly working out the quirks and sharing solutions between group members and vendors.

Then, the group can easily accelerate extending the ecosystem regarding future extensions, platforms, software solutions, sharing new technologies, etc. Turning x86 into The One Platform, instead of many with vendor specific technologies.

And finally, enforce those technologies and attempt taking the leap ahead back, like Arm Holdings PLC.

It’s pretty obvious: If you can’t beat them, join them.