Even if they are to be successful in catching up, they will at best be where intel was before Pat - playing catchup in the chip industry and any time they slip, trying to maximize profit of the already spent r&d budget instead of innovating for the next step (7nm for intel in this case). That opens the risk of being left behind (if they have inferior chips, they’ll have to use them over their superior competitors) in cloud and their product lines (surface pro, book).

Their only potential competitive advantage is if they close down Windows to MS-only chips, which I don’t see happening.