5G is going to be the next big thing in the communication industry. Because of its impressive bandwidth and great scope in the IoT sector, major tech companies are pushing their limits to incorporate 5G features on their devices. Well, 5G connectivity has already made its way to a few smartphones. However, in PCs, it hasn’t been so mainstream. So in order to make an impression in the PC market with 5G chips, Intel recently partnered with MediaTek. With this partnership, these companies hope to make 5G-enabled chipsets for laptops.
With this collaboration, the two companies will go hand in hand for the “development, certification and support of 5G modem solutions” for next-generation PC platforms. And if all things go as planned, this partnership is expected to bring results in 2021. HP and Dell will be the first companies to take advantage of this collaboration. So we can expect that most of the cellular-connected computers in 2021 would be either from Dell or HP.
Also Read: Apple set to buy Intel’s 5G modem business for $1 billion
The 5G PC chip is based in part on MediaTek’s Helio M70 5G modem, introduced earlier this year. According to the agreement, Intel will “define” what a 5G PC should look like and based on the cues, MediaTek would develop chips as promised. After the development of the chip, Intel will make sure if it does a perfect job and then checks if it is ready for integration on the PCs. Apart from working on platform-side integrations, Intel will also work on OS host driver development. Fibocom also has an involvement in this project. Fibocom will help these companies to develop M.2 modules optimized for Intel’s platforms.
Since Intel is one of the biggest chipmakers in itself, the collaboration doesn’t look surprising at all. But what’s surprising is that why Intel considered MediaTek over the leader in the business like Qualcomm or Samsung. Whatever be the reason, Intel made a big step forward with long-term PC strategy to compete in the future of mobile PCs. As the chipmaker is quite losing grip in the industry because of AMD’s value for money processors, it might take the company to new heights.
