By Sean Hollister
Publication Date: 2026-03-12 21:33:00
Why Arm + Linux now? In a blog post, Google only says that it “addresses the growing demand for a browsing experience that combines the benefits of the open-source Chromium project with the Google ecosystem of apps and features.” What we’re left wondering is whether Google’s talking about existing demand, or demand yet to come.
There’s certainly a growing demand for Linux. Some Verge editors have begun to ditch Windows with varying degrees of success. But those are our x86 desktops — there isn’t a lot of consumer-facing Linux on Arm chips, unless you count all the Linux-based Android phones out there. You can buy Linux on laptops from Dell, Lenovo, Framework, and such, but again, they use x86 chips. (And if you’re not a consumer, there’s already Chromium.)
But three of the companies that actually build Arm processors — Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Mediatek — may look to Linux as they try to compete with the Windows/Intel/AMD incumbents. Qualcomm told me in January that…
