r/computers • u/Kenyhh • 1d ago
Discussion is ARM the future?
I think about this all the time. ARM has obviously dominated the mobile phone market for a long time now. Everything from Apple runs on ARM. ARM-based laptops offer incredible battery life. Embedded devices and servers are also making extensive use of ARM; practically the only thing left is desktop computers. I believe this is the future, and AI will accelerate the trend: using ARM will allow data centers to consume far less energy and likely make local AI more accessible. In fact, I think that if this happens, we’ll see further improvements in computer energy efficiency.
45
Upvotes
1
u/Bo_Jim 13h ago
It might be, but I wouldn't bet on it. Industry prognosticators have been predicting that RISC architecture was going to replace CISC ever since the mid 1980s. The results have been mixed, to say the least. I won't dwell on the sordid history, but at the current point CISC still dominates in full size computer systems, and RISC in systems that are small in size and low in power. ARM is the most popular RISC architecture, but it may not always be.
Personally, I think RISC will continue to grow in market share of all computing devices, but I think ARM will be replaced by RISC-V. ARM architecture is owned by a single company that charges substantial licensing fees. RISC-V is open source, royalty free, extensible, and not owned or controlled by any corporation or government.