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Microsoft is eyeing ARM for its low-power chips, testing it for its Azure servers. This is seen as a step toward being price-competitive, since ARM chips are known to be highly energy-efficient. ARM chips are not being tested for customer-facing cloud services, but for internal purposes such as initiatives around machine learning, big data analytics and general storage. This move is sure to open up new challenges for current chip leader, Intel.

According to Jason Zander, vice president of Microsoft's Azure cloud division, a significant commitment to ARM as a partner in chip making will follow through. In fact, Microsoft has worked with Qualcomm and Cavium to develop a new version of its Windows operating system, specifically designed for servers with ARM processors.

The IT giant is also expected to develop a new cloud server design customized to ARM, and is roping in new partners and capabilities for the same. This speaks volumes about the kind of commitment one can expect from Microsoft towards ARM. At present the testing is in the preliminary stage and Microsoft is not looking at deploying it in customer-facing networks at the moment, but is focussing on allied areas such as storage, search, machine learning and big data analytics. Microsoft may soon announce details at the Open Compute Project Summit.

Intel has long been the dominant player in the server chip market, and continues to do so to even today. However, this may soon be a thing of the past. ARM plays on the price point; its server chips are known to be extremely power-efficient. They also offer more choice in terms of vendors. Traditionally known mainly for its mobile processors, ARM soon encroached upon Intels battlefield of supercomputing. In fact, ARM had developed a new chip architecture specifically for supercomputing applications.

Fujitsu was one of its first ARM customers and they planned on using these new ARM chips to make a new supercomputer called Project K. ARMs shift from mobile to mainstream was soon emboldened with ARM being acquired by SoftBank last year and investments in new processor genres turned more aggressive. Going by the flow, ARM will soon deal a hefty blow to Intel and we may soon see a takeover of Intels leadership position in the market.

Intel has been trying to stay ahead by bringing on innovative research in the fields of quantum technologies and optical computing hardware. The wait to see who wins this round between the Intel-ARM face-off will be interesting.

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Microsoft Cloud Tests ARM Processors for its Servers - Read IT Quik