Microsoft partnership with AMD and Intel is creating processor of its own. Apple gave the surprise in 2016 when creating the Apple T1, the coprocessor in charge of managing security and working together with sensors such as the Touch ID of those MacBook Pros of 2016. The idea evolved with the Apple T2 of 2017 that increased capabilities and benefits and raised more protections to prevent equipment but also made it more difficult to repair equipment in third-party services.
Now Microsoft has announced a joint effort with Intel, AMD and Intel and Qualcomm to develop both an x86 and an ARM version of this processor, called Pluton, which will be a kind of evolution of the current Trusted Platform Module (TPM) present in many current computers.
Microsoft Processor: Pluto as (even safer) evolution of TPM
The TPM chip stores sensitive information about the operating system and is also responsible for offering access to Windows Hello technology and its operation with facial recognition cameras or fingerprint sensors, but Microsoft wants to go even further and apply the ideas that already exist. have implemented on the Xbox.
Among other things, because TPM is not exempt from vulnerabilities, something they want to tackle with that evolution that they have called Pluto.
The idea is to integrate the TPM platform into the CPU itself, and in this first phase, said chip will be in charge of emulating the APIs that are currently used to, for example, provide the biometric characteristics of current equipment, but accompanying them with that new approach aimed at avoiding security problems.
The idea is therefore similar to the one that Apple raises with its T2 chips and also goes in the direction of the Titan M security chips that Google has been developing for some time, and will be an integral part of the gigantic Windows ecosystem when Microsoft begins to implement this feature with its partners and manufacturers of PCs and laptops.
It is not known at the moment when those new CPUs with this additional layer of security will be available, and AMD was theoretically going to be one of the first to offer it in its new processors, but it just announced the Ryzen 5000 with Zen 3 architecture and that we know of. option is not activated in them.
We will see, yes, if this coprocessor also ends up being an element that also makes it more complicated for the users themselves —and not the official Microsoft technical services or the manufacturers— to try to repair their equipment.