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The first Surface ran on Nvidia Tegra ARM chips precisely because the graphics processor and drivers were so much better than others and Nvidia was a fantastic partner. Windows 8 on ARM supported Qualcomm and TI as well. Slide below is from the CES event Jan 2011.It was later… https://t.co/TGXe1hiG7U pic.twitter.com/716Ghar5j5 May 30, 2026
Sinofsky shares some interesting media in the above embedded Tweet. There’s a slide from the promotional deck, shown at CES 2011, where the “strong partnerships” behind this Windows on Arm thrust would surely lead to unstoppable momentum. That’s what you may have believed if you swallowed the effusive presentations at the time.
This prior push for Windows on Arm didn’t exclusively support Nvidia Tegra. Sinofsky points out that Windows 8 on Arm also supported Qualcomm and TI processors. However, we saw Microsoft switch to a Qualcomm partnership focus in the years following. That collaborative effort also didn’t break through, even when the much-lauded Nuvia Oryon architecture arrived with the Snapdragon X family.
Nvidia and Microsoft tease "a new era of PC" — rumored N1X laptops could be Windows on Arm systems
Nvidia's long-rumored N1 SoC spotted on a laptop motherboard with 128 GB RAM, listed for $1,400
'Every Microsoft engineer got a stopwatch,' says Windows veteran reminiscing about company's past focus on speed
The former-President of the Windows Division (July 2009 to Nov 2012) also shares a video that should be preserved for posterity. Check it out to witness “an old school Windows Phone video of the first time Windows ran on Nvidia Tegra Arm using the desktop compositor which was a BIG deal. Sept 2010.”
Will the latest Nvidia and Arm thrust into Windows work out better? We’ll probably have a much better idea about that in the coming days at Computex . Sinofsky replies to some comments on his Tweet to say the result could be “a reliable platform for graphics compute,” using Windows. Pricing is also obviously going to be a sticky issue for any new platform looking to attract buyers right now.
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Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/microsoft-veteran-recalls-the-last-time-nvidia-and-arm-was-the-future-of-windows-shares-a-video-of-the-first-time-windows-ran-on-nvidia-tegra-arm-from-2010#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at Dell Technologies World: ‘Demand Is Going Parabolic, Utterly Parabolic’
- NVIDIA and SAP Bring Trust to Specialized Agents
- Independent cyber audit finds zero malware or backdoors in DJI drones — U.S. firm's hardware analysis challenges FCC ban amid ongoing $1.56 billion legal battle
- Nvidia's long-awaited N1/N1X SoC specs leak ahead of Computex launch — N1 to feature up to 20 Arm-based cores, standard N1 equipped with 12- and 10-core configs
- Ambernic's retro gaming handhelds are quietly losing RAM capacity and being downgraded to older LPDDR3 memory — company says 1GB capacity is still the standard,
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.