Nvidia has roiled the semiconductor sector with the launch of a PC chip. But there is one big beneficiary -- semiconductor-design company Arm Holdings.
Nvidia late on Sunday unveiled its RTX Spark, which integrates Arm's designs for a custom central-processing unit.
Arm shares soared 16% to $408.85 on Monday, notching a record closing high. The stock has gained 274% this year and has rallied 224% over the past 12 months, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Investors were taking Nvidia's announcement as the latest sign that Arm is set to gain market share in both PCs and computer servers against the x86 architecture used by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.
Arm makes designs for the different parts of chips, and it makes money from licensing and royalties from customers like Nvidia. If Nvidia's PC processor turns out to be superior to rivals for artificial-intelligence workloads carried out on a device, it could force rivals to follow suit and use Arm's designs.
"This reality will hit home," if AMD announces an Arm-based CPU for both PCs and the data center, signaling a move away from x86, wrote independent analyst Richard Windsor, who publishes the Radio Free Mobile blog.
However, it's not necessarily a winner-takes-all race. Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh reiterated Outperform ratings for both Arm and AMD in a research note on Sunday, while keeping a Neutral rating on Intel.
"With strong outlooks across the board, we continue to see strong CPU demand driving tailwinds across both x86 and ARM platforms in 2H26/27E," Rakesh wrote.
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