Parallels Desktop 20.2 brings x86 emulation to Apple Silicon Macs, allowing developers and enterprises to run Intel-based virtual machines on M1 and M2 chips.

After the previous Parallels Desktop version brought Writing Tools support for Windows virtual machines, the new update improves it.

Parallels Desktop 20.2 is out now, with the latest edition including 64-bit x86 emulation for Apple Silicon and more enhancements to make Apple Intelligence Writing Tools work with Windows apps.

That changed last week with Parallels Desktop 20.2, which adds preliminary x86 emulation so you can fire up 64-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 11, and

Parallels has added support for x86 emulation in Parallels Desktop 20.2, product manager Mikhail Ushakov wrote in a blog post last week. The “early technology preview” will let you emulate Intel-based hardware on an M1-or-greater Mac, a first for Parallels since Apple’s Arm transition in 2020 — but don’t expect stellar performance.

Virtualization software like Parallels and VMware Fusion give Mac owners the ability to run Windows and Linux on top of macOS, but for Apple Silicon Macs, that support was limited to the Arm-based versions of those operating systems.