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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirms the upcoming N1 APU that’s heading for the PC is indeed the same as the GB10 ‘Superchip’ in the DGX Spark AI box

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Google and Qualcomm are prepping ‘desktop’ Android to enable ‘mobile and PC’ in one device, but should Windows and x86 be afraid?

Jeremy Laird

24 September 2025

Google and Qualcomm are both super excited…

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(Image credit: Qualcomm)

So, Google and Qualcomm are bigging up what’s basically a desktop version of the former’s Android OS for smartphones (via 9to5Google). The idea, apparently, is to fuse “mobile and PC” into a single device. And given Qualcomm is part of this particular conversation, that device would presumably be running an Arm chip rather than a traditional x86 PC processor.

The venue for all this is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit 2025, where Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon had an on-stage conversation with Google SVP of Platforms & Devices Rick Osterloh. Google said last year that it planned to base ChromeOS on Android in future, as opposed to being its own stand-alone OS.
At the summit, the pair fleshed out some of the details. “In the past, we’ve always had very different systems between what we are building on PCs and what we are building on smartphones,” Osterloh said.

Related Articles

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirms the upcoming N1 APU that’s heading for the PC is indeed the same as the GB10 ‘Superchip’ in the DGX Spark AI box

Windows on Arm gamers will be able to download Xbox app games locally but cloud gaming might still be a better option

The reason Nvidia’s upcoming Arm CPU is delayed is apparently in part because Microsoft isn’t sorting out its next-gen OS quickly enough

That has meant, for instance, that running Android apps on a ChromeOS device required a virtual machine. But ChromeOS will now be a part of the overall Android stack. “We’ve embarked on a project to combine that. We are building together a common technical foundation for our products on PCs and desktop computing systems.

“This is another way that we can leverage all of the great work we’re doing together on our AI stack, our full stack, bringing Gemini models, bringing the assistant, bringing all of our application and developer community into the PC domain,” Osterloh explained.

Qualcomm has been trying for some time to make a dent in the PC market. (Image credit: Qualcomm)
Given Osterloh is on stage at the Qualcomm event, the implication is that “PCs” running this new Android-based take on ChromeOS will be using the latter’s chips, such as the Snapdragon X line that’s designed for PCs as opposed to smartphones.
Indeed, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon thinks this is an excellent idea. “I’ve seen it. It’s incredible. I think it delivers on the vision of conversions in mobile and PC. And I can’t wait to have one,” he said.

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Obviously, if you’re an Android user, the ability to run Android apps natively on your laptop or desktop could be pretty neat. Actually, Microsoft kind of tried to do that itself with the Windows Subsystem for Android, which was cancelled in March this year.
But the question is what impact this might have on the broader PC ecosystem? An “Android” laptop could be pretty appealing as a low-cost device for general computing on the move.
You’d expect it to be cheap and have great battery life thanks to an Arm CPU. And if most of what you do is achieved via a web browser, then you’re probably good to go.

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirms the upcoming N1 APU that’s heading for the PC is indeed the same as the GB10 ‘Superchip’ in the DGX Spark AI box

Windows on Arm gamers will be able to download Xbox app games locally but cloud gaming might still be a better option

The reason Nvidia’s upcoming Arm CPU is delayed is apparently in part because Microsoft isn’t sorting out its next-gen OS quickly enough

Of course, the problems come as soon as you consider higher performance requirements and specific existing applications that may not be available on Android in smartphone format, let alone optimised for this new desktop and laptop OS.
And arguably the most demanding subset of apps that meet that definition are PC games. There’s just such a huge ecosystem of PC hardware and gaming-relevant software, that the barriers to entry for any new architecture are huge.

The Steam Deck is arguably the only PC device to rival the Windows-x86 alliance, and even then only the Windows bit. (Image credit: Valve)
Indeed, they’re huge enough that that the only company that has made even the slightest dent in the otherwise impregnable Windows-x86 gaming fortress is Valve with its Linux-based SteamOS. But even then, it’s only Windows that took the hit. The Steam Deck still runs an x86 processor.
Ironically enough, it was Valve who arguably popped a cap in the existing ChromeOS’s hopes of ever being a gaming platform when it recently pulled plans to move Steam for Chromebooks out of beta and instead cancelled it.
So, yeah, we’re not expecting Android on the PC to assimilate gaming any time soon. But it probably adds to the broader momentum that’s building up around Arm on the PC. Arm’s take over of the PC has long been predicted and always failed to materialised. But that doesn’t mean it won’t actually ever happen.

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Jeremy Laird

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Hardware writer

Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirms the upcoming N1 APU that’s heading for the PC is indeed the same as the GB10 ‘Superchip’ in the DGX Spark AI box

Windows on Arm gamers will be able to download Xbox app games locally but cloud gaming might still be a better option

The reason Nvidia’s upcoming Arm CPU is delayed is apparently in part because Microsoft isn’t sorting out its next-gen OS quickly enough

We might have to wait until next year to see those all-Nvidia laptops with custom Arm processors

Nvidia and Intel joining forces could be seen as anti-AMD, but it just serves to highlight AMD’s advantage with Ryzen and Radeon under one roof

If you’re wondering what those newly announced Intel-Nvidia PC chips might look like, there’s already an Nvidia ‘Superchip’ that could provide the answers

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