Apple's M1 chip has grabbed many headlines for its Intel-beating performance, but may soon face competition.

This is because AMD may produce its own ARM-based chip. According to hardware leaker Mauri QHD, Intel is developing two M1 competing chips. And these are apparently "almost ready."

Like Intel, AMD also makes chips and processors based on IBM's x86 architecture. In the last few years, however, companies like Microsoft have been working on making operating systems designed to run on the x86 architecture run on ARM's RISC architecture.

In Microsoft's case, this meant working with Qualcomm to develop a custom Snapdragon chip capable of running Windows 10. However, due to performance and software compatibility issues, these devices were not true replacements for Intel- or AMD-based machines. [However, Apple's M1 chip, through the new Mac mini M1 and MacBook Air M1, showed that true desktop and laptop performance could be obtained from ARM-based chips, respectively. Therefore, it would not be a big surprise if AMD is considering doing something similar in order to keep their silicon competitive in this part of the chip arena.

The Mauri QHD leak shed no further light on AMD's ARM chip plans, except that Team Red is working on it.

However, as our colleagues at TechRadar pointed out, ARM is no stranger to flirtation with ARM-based chips.

There was apparently a 64-bit ARM v8-designed chip called the K12 Core. This chip never made it to market, but it shows that AMD has the knowledge to deal with the ARM architecture. [Why should we care about AMD's ARM-based chips? That means slim, lightweight laptops and mini-desktops that are unrivaled in terms of performance. And since AMD has often priced its chips competitively, it may be able to make cheaper ultra-portable laptops without compromising on performance.

At this point, these are all educated guesses. It will also largely depend on whether Windows 10 app compatibility is further developed for RISC architectures.

According to Mauri QHD, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su will be giving a presentation at CES 2021 on January 12, so we may soon hear more about AMD's upcoming chips.