In November of last year, Intel demonstrated the “first ever showing of a 64-bit kernel running on Bay Trail with Android.”

Ironically, the Bay Trail processor currently runs in 32-bit mode on
Windows 8.1 too — which is otherwise a full 64-bit platform — though that will be rectified in the coming months when 64-bit Windows 8.1 mode is enabled.

Apple garnered lots of headlines in September when it unveiled the 64-bit A7 processor — that chip now powers the iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and iPad Mini Retina.

Going to 64-bit allows a device, for instance, to address more memory — more than the 4GB limitation in many cases for 32-bit processors.

And a 64-bit platform can allow data-intensive applications to handle large chunks of data more efficiently than 32-bit — and that can have implications in gaming, for instance.