For nearly 30 years, MediaTek has been producing processors and controllers for all kinds of electronic devices, including smartphones, televisions, and satellite navigation. Now, according to one report, the Taiwan-based company is looking to produce an Arm-based CPU to compete with Qualcomm in the Copilot+ PC market, with a target launch date of 2025.

This information comes from three sources familiar with the project, according to Reuters. The phrase is often used in the media to protect leakers from lawsuits, and given that there are reports that MediaTek is working with Nvidia on several projects, this information is likely to be accurate.

So why would MediaTek do this and why now? In the latter case, it is because Qualcomm enjoys an exclusive contract as the only chip vendor supported by Windows on Arm, a version of Microsoft's operating system that is not x86-based. The exact details of the agreement have not been disclosed, but it is generally believed that the deal will expire this year, paving the way for other chipmakers to enter this market.

Reuters reports that MediaTek is taking a different approach than Qualcomm, using Arm's standard layout rather than designing a custom CPU architecture based on the Arm instruction set. In theory, this is cheaper and much quicker to manufacture, but leaves less room for tweaking performance, power consumption, etc.

However, as a cheaper alternative to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X (itself much cheaper than AMD and Intel chips), MediaTek's processor could do wonders for the ultra-cheap laptop market. Typically, this market is the domain of basic Chrome laptops, which are good for email and light web browsing, but little else. Something more powerful would be welcome.

One question all this raises is whether this means the end of cooperation between MediaTek and Nvidia. We previously reported that both companies were working on a project to develop laptop processors, but does the Reuter article mean that this is all over or does it point to the same thing?" also, MediaTek and Nvidia for devices like the Steam Deck There are rumors that they are developing chips.

All three may be talking about the same processor, a MediaTek-badged CPU with a standard Arm CPU core and an Nvidia GPU. As Qualcomm did with the Snapdragon X, the company could make several versions of the design, with the largest, most core-filled chip targeting laptops and the smallest chip used in handhelds.

However, Reuters claims, according to two sources, that the project mentioned in the article is separate from the one with Nvidia; since Arm designs GPUs as well as CPU cores, MediaTek would not need Nvidia's CUDA cores. MediaTek does not need Nvidia's CUDA cores, and can offer a very cheap processor for a low-cost Copilot+ PC.

The software stack behind it is also very important, not just the hardware, because once you add gaming as a priority, it becomes a much bigger and more expensive challenge.

The real priority should be emulation. One of the main selling points of the latest Copilot+ PCs is that they can run most "normal" PC apps and games, because under the Windows on Arm hood there is a software layer that converts x86 instructions to Arm instructions, which can be processed by Snapdragon X and others Snapdragon X, etc.

If MediaTek wants to compete with Qualcomm, its chips need to be equally good at emulation, but with off-the-shelf components, that may be easier said than done.

But if MediaTek can make some headway in the Windows laptop arena, that would be good news for all of us.