Qualcomm is the company behind the chips found in smartphones, laptops and many other devices we use daily. But it may soon lose its license to use technology developed by its partner Arm, a move that could have enormous consequences for the tech world.

The chip design firm gave a mandated 60-day notice of their cancelation to Qualcomm, Bloomberg reports. Arm claims that when Qualcomm acquired AI chip company Nuvia - which uses the Arm architecture - for $1.4 billion in 2021, it was required to seek Arm's approval to transfer licenses from Nuvia over to Qualcomm.

Any company that makes Arm chips must license technology from Arm Holdings plc, the British company that develops the instruction set. Companies can license the instruction set and create their own CPU designs or license one of Arm's ready-made Cortex CPU core designs to incorporate into their own chips.

PCs with Intel and AMD processors also qualify as Copilot+ certified, so any failure to resolve the dispute, or defeat for Qualcomm, won’t disrupt AI capabilities from appearing in Windows laptops, but the Oryon core is also used in high-end smartphones and tablets due for release in the coming weeks.

Arm has reportedly scrapped its license with Qualcomm, which granted the company the right to design chips based on Arm technology standards.

The two companies are in a legal spat over Qualcomm's acquisition of Nuvia, which uses a form of chip Arm technology.

Arm has served Qualcomm with a 60-day cancelation notice for its chip design license. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite uses custom Oryon CPU cores, thanks to its Nuvia acquisition. Arm canceled Qualcomm's license due to the latter's Nuvia acquisition without its consent and new licensing agreements.

(Reuters) -Chip firm Arm is cancelling an architectural license agreement that allows Qualcomm to use its intellectual property to design chips, a person familiar with the matter said, amid an ongoing legal battle between the two companies.