At MWC 2026 in Barcelona this year, Christopher Bergey, Executive Vice President of Arm's Edge AI Business Unit, accepted...An interview with the Spanish technology media outlet GEEKNETICHe admitted that Arm has not yet provided GPU products for Windows operating systems to its partners. This statement not only highlights the high degree of closedness of the current Windows on Arm (WoA) ecosystem in terms of graphics cores, but also draws attention to the upcoming N1 PC computing platform, jointly developed by NVIDIA and MediaTek.
The High Barrier to Windows GPU Certification: Only Four Giants Hold the Ticket
Over the past few years, although the Windows on Arm ecosystem has made great strides, Arm's first-party GPU IPs (such as the Mali or Immortalis series) have not yet been able to be deployed on the Windows platform.
In the interview, Christopher Bergey pointed out the core reason: Microsoft has an extremely strict certification mechanism for GPU support on the Windows platform. Currently, only four GPU vendors worldwide have obtained Windows certification: Intel and AMD, which specialize in traditional x86 architecture processors; Qualcomm, which has long been deeply involved in the Arm architecture laptop market; and NVIDIA, which dominates the discrete graphics card market.
This means that chipmakers like MediaTek and Samsung, who want to enter the Windows laptop market, will face significant obstacles in terms of software drivers and system certification if they want to use Arm-licensed reference GPUs. This is why Qualcomm insists on using its own Adreno GPU in PC chips like the Snapdragon X Elite, and upcoming new players will have to find alternative solutions.
NVIDIA and MediaTek's "N1 Platform" delivers a powerful performance boost to the WoA platform.
Since Arm's reference GPUs are not working on the Windows platform, this gives NVIDIA an excellent entry point.
It has been widely rumored in the industry that NVIDIA is collaborating deeply with MediaTek to create the "N1 computing platform" specifically designed for the Windows on Arm market. This combination includes MediaTek's expertise in Arm architecture CPUs and low-power communication basebands, paired with NVIDIA's dominant GeForce GPU graphics cores and Tensor Core AI computing power, which have passed rigorous Windows certification.
The emergence of the N1 platform is expected to have two major impacts on the current WoA market:
• Breaking Qualcomm's monopoly:For the past few years, Qualcomm has been almost synonymous with Windows on Arm devices. The addition of the N1 platform will provide OEMs (such as ASUS, Acer, Lenovo, etc.) with a more competitive high-performance option.
• Solving the pain points of gaming and rendering on Arm laptops:Currently, the biggest weakness of WoA laptops remains compatibility with large-scale AAA games and heavy video rendering. The strong involvement of NVIDIA GPUs not only allows for the direct application of its mature DLSS and ray tracing technologies, but also completely solves the graphics performance bottleneck of the traditional Arm architecture under Windows.
Arm's counterattack strategy: betting on the CPU-based AI instruction set SME2
Arm was not unprepared for NVIDIA's strong presence in the GPU market.
In the interview, Christopher Bergey specifically mentioned that the current trend of "Agentic AI" presents a huge opportunity for Arm. Arm's strategy is to respond by enhancing the AI processing capabilities of the CPU itself. Thanks to the latest SME2 (Scalable Matrix Extension 2) instruction set, future Arm platforms will be able to effectively accelerate the processing of various edge AI workloads using only the CPU, even without a dedicated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) or a powerful GPU.
This "CPU-heavy, GPU-light" architectural approach may not satisfy hardcore gamers, but for the vast majority of thin and light business laptops that only require word processing, web browsing, and light AI assistants (such as Copilot), it can bring more extreme battery life and cost advantages.
Analysis of viewpoints
The battleground for Windows on Arm has officially shifted from the early stage of "whether it can be used" (compatibility) to the fierce stage of "who is better to use" (performance and ecosystem).
Arm's own GPUs are not available on Windows, which in the short term seems to be due to the barriers of Microsoft's certification mechanism, but it has also indirectly led to the birth of the "Avengers Alliance" of NVIDIA and MediaTek. If the N1 platform can be launched as scheduled this year, it will definitely not only be targeting Qualcomm's Snapdragon X series, but also directly challenge Intel and AMD's x86 architecture thin and light laptops (such as Lunar Lake and Strix Point).
For Arm, whether it's Qualcomm's Adreno GPUs or NVIDIA's GeForce GPUs, as long as they run on Arm-based CPUs, it's a significant boost to its IP licensing revenue. For consumers, this computing power war will bring next-generation Windows laptops with longer battery life and higher performance.
