Google Chrome finally goes native for Windows on Arm ahead of Snapdragon X Elite debut

Google Chrome is the most popular browser and it was not natively available on Windows PCs based on Arm until now. All that is set to change for the better with today’s announcement from Google and Qualcomm. Google quietly released the Arm build to the Canary channel a few weeks back and looks like the final version is rolling out this week to Arm-compatible Windows PCs.

I have been testing the Canary build for Windows 11 on the Microsoft Surface Pro X for a few days now and it is nice to have Chrome running natively without emulation. The experience is so much better than using the emulated 32-bit version which not only is laggy but also a battery and memory hog. The native Arm build is certainly snappier. The announcement claims “a dramatic performance improvement” over previous versions.

“We’ve designed Chrome browser to be fast, secure and easy to use across desktops and mobile devices, and we’re always looking for ways to bring this experience to more people,” said Hiroshi Lockheimer, Senior Vice President, Google. “Our close collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies will help ensure that Chrome users get the best possible experience while browsing the Web on current ARM-compatible PCs.”

This is not the first time, Google is making an Arm-compatible version of Chrome available. Back in 2020, Google released a version compatible with Apple silicon-based Macs which are based on the Arm architecture.

“The new version of Google Chrome will help cement Snapdragon X Elite’s role as the premier platform for Windows PCs starting in mid-2024,” said Cristiano Amon, President and CEO, Qualcomm Inc. “The PC industry is on the cusp of an inflection point, and as we enter the era of the AI PC, we can’t wait to see Chrome shine by taking advantage of the powerful Snapdragon X Elite system.”

The Snapdragon X Elite platform looks very promising from performance benchmarks and onboarding Google Chrome is a big win for Qualcomm. We got a chance to see some demos of the platform at Snapdragon Summit last year and most recently at MWC 2024.

Snapdragon X Elite powered PCs are expected to be revealed anywhere between the Microsoft Build event to Computex 2024 in Taiwan where Qualcomm CEO, Cristiano Amon is a keynote speaker.

We could see a big shift in the PC industry from x86 to Arm in 2024. Apple has completely shifted away from Intel x86 chips and every Mac which is sold today runs on Apple Silicon since last year.  The stage is set and it’s an exciting time for the industry!