Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on Tuesday (Oct 15) said they are forming a group to help make sure software works across their chips, responding to a rising challenge from Arm Holdings .

Intel invented what is known as the x86 computing architecture, a technology that for 40 years has powered the world's laptops, PCs and data centre servers. AMD licences the technology from Intel and also makes chips using x86, competing directly against Intel under a longstanding legal settlement.

But the market share of both firms has been eroded by Arm, which licences a competing architecture for computing to laptop chip designers such as Apple and Qualcomm, as well as to firms like Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet that use it in data centres. Part of Arm's rise stems from rules in its contracts that all Arm chips be able to run all Arm software, regardless of who made the chip.

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