en.Wedoany.com Reported - The demand for data center inference driven by the global artificial intelligence boom is propelling the central processing unit (CPU) market into a new phase of rapid growth, with the market size expected to exceed $220 billion by 2030, representing an annual growth rate of over 40%. This trend has attracted an influx of companies including Nvidia, Qualcomm, Amazon, Google, and several Chinese chip makers, reshaping the CPU market long dominated by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

As the core of computers and servers, the CPU business was once considered mature with limited growth potential. In the early stages of AI computing, graphics processing units (GPUs) played a key role in model training, while CPUs were somewhat marginalized. However, with the increase in emerging workloads such as AI inference and intelligent agents, industry executives point out that the ratio of CPUs to GPUs has narrowed from an early 1:8 to approximately 1:4, and may further shrink to 1:2 or even 1:1 in the future.

Vivek Arya, an analyst at Bank of America, emphasized that AI agent systems need to perform tasks such as planning, information retrieval, and code execution. These workflow orchestrations require sequential execution and low latency, making them more suitable for running on CPUs. Bernstein Research estimates that the data center CPU market will expand from $37 billion in 2025 to $223 billion by 2030. Bank of America, meanwhile, expects the market to exceed $170 billion by 2030, nearly five times its current level, with an average annual growth rate of 37%.

The surge in demand has led to a tightening of CPU supply, attracting a new wave of chip manufacturers into the market. Tony Pialis, head of Qualcomm's new data center business, stated that CPUs have been sold out. Nvidia has begun offering its Vera CPU as a standalone product, and CEO Jensen Huang expects the CPU business alone to generate up to $20 billion in annual revenue for the company this year. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said during the Computex exhibition that he has received multiple calls requesting increased CPU supply, and the company still holds over 50% of the data center CPU market share. AMD CEO Lisa Su predicts that the CPU market will grow by at least 35% over the next five years, far higher than the previous growth rate of 3-4%.

Arm, owned by SoftBank, is also targeting the CPU market revival. This year, it launched its first physical chip for data center servers and plans to achieve annual revenue of $15 billion by 2030. Cloud computing giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are developing custom CPUs based on the Arm architecture for their data centers. Arm revealed that its technology now powers over 50% of CPUs in the world's leading hyperscale data centers.

The influx of competition is reshaping the CPU market landscape. Intel and AMD have long dominated high-performance computing with their x86 processors, while challengers such as Nvidia, Google, and Amazon are betting on Arm-based chips, which offer advantages in energy efficiency. Brady Wang, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research, stated that Arm-based CPUs have an edge in energy consumption, while the x86 architecture excels at handling complex tasks. TechInsights analyst James Sanders believes that although the relative share of x86 will decline year by year, partly due to the increased adoption of custom Arm-based chips, the overall market is actually growing strongly, leaving room for everyone to develop.

In China, domestic CPU developers are accelerating their growth. Hygon Information Technology uses the x86 architecture and has gained local market share as cloud service providers accelerate domestic procurement. Bernstein Research analyst David Dai expects its share of the China server CPU market to increase from about 20% this year to approximately 35% by 2028, though foreign suppliers will still hold the majority of the market. Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor is preparing for an IPO on the STAR Market. Loongson is also expanding, but despite steady revenue growth, it remains in a loss-making state. Huawei continues to develop its Kunpeng server CPU.

In the PC market, MediaTek has made its first foray into laptop CPU design, collaborating with Nvidia to develop the RTX Spark super chip, which integrates a custom CPU and a Blackwell GPU. MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai stated that the product is suitable for the era of agentic AI. Supplier executives believe that given Nvidia's dominance in AI infrastructure, its CPU will put pressure on Intel and AMD, but the race has only just begun.