You’ll be hearing a lot about AI-powered PCs this year, if CES 2024 is anything to overlook. Chipmakers Intel and AMD, as well as all major PC manufacturers, are pushing the concept of the AI PC to the max. But what is an AI PC and is it worth investing in a PC at this early stage?Let’s dig deeper.
The so-called PC AI will use one of the processors recently introduced by Intel or AMD, which is called a neural processing unit.
Until now, most AI workloads have been handled by graphics processing units, which are chips primarily designed to handle graphics and gaming. However new processor ranges such as Intel’s Core Ultra or AMD’s Ryzen 8000G include an NPU to take on the bulk of the AI workloads.
“The GPU is currently the fastest AI processing unit,” AMD’s senior processor technical marketing manager, Donny Woligroski, told me at a CES 2024 briefing. “You’re going to see that performance cross over, with the NPU doing the same levels of [AI] performance as the GPU.”
New lines of computers and desktops from corporations like Lenovo, Dell, and HP will carry the “AI PC” branding if they come with any of those new processors with an NPU.
You may also find a new key on the keyboard of those PCs. Some Windows 11 laptops now come with a Windows Copilot key, to the right of the ALT key. This provides a shortcut to Windows Copilot AI which has been built into Windows 11.
It’s not the biggest technological innovation of the fashion era: you may already be able to access Copilot, the shortcut combination of Windows’ C key. But that will make Microsoft’s AI assistant even harder to ignore.
It’s $64 million because, frankly, even PC brands are struggling to formulate transparent answers about what those machines will be capable of.
In the short term, you may see AI-powered PCs start handling on-premises AI responsibilities instead of relying on the cloud, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. During a demo at CES 2024 earlier this week, Lenovo showed me a prototype of its upcoming AI PC service. with an AI assistant that can help you access your PC’s features (e. g. , “Put my computer in battery saver mode”) or answer questions about how much memory the PC has.
Lenovo’s assistant will also take on responsibilities such as summarizing lengthy documents or writing replies to emails. All of this can be done without the use of cloud services, which means you’ll still be able to use AI equipment even without a web connection.
Possibly this isn’t a big deal for consumers: how do you use a PC without an internet connection nowadays?However, this can also prove more problematic for businesses, which can run on-premise AI installations without safety considerations about shipping. sensitive data to AI installations in the cloud.
However, when it comes to the bigger picture of what these AI PCs will do that we can’t already get from cloud AI services, the answers start to get wooly.
At an Intel press conference here at CES, the most sensible executives at Dell, Lenovo and HP were asked what their AI-powered PCs would bring to buyers, and their answers were long hyperbole but few concrete benefits.
“The PC known before will be radically different,” said Sam Burd, president of the Dell Client Solutions Group. “The PC is the productivity tool and the AI is a wonderful explanation for why upgrading. “
“It’s going to be a computing revolution,” said Alex Cho, president of private computing at HP, although he also gave no clear examples of what an AI PC will be able to do.
To be fair to PC makers, it’s because they just don’t know. PCs with NPUs have only been on the market for a few weeks, and developers will need time to exploit their capabilities.
“What you do on an AI PC in 2024 will be drastically different than what you do in 2026,” said Michelle Johnston Holthaus, executive vice president of guest computing at Intel.
AMD’s Donny Woligroski agrees. It will probably be beyond 2025 before we start to see what an AI PC is capable of,” he told me.
The good luck or otherwise of AI-powered PCs will possibly depend on the AI features Microsoft chooses to integrate into the next edition of Windows.
Microsoft and PC vendors have hinted that Windows 12 will launch later this year, with an expected focus on AI. The existing version of Windows Copilot in Windows 11 is a far cry from the features promised through Microsoft, but it creates a new operating formula with AI. Built in from the start, it gives Microsoft the ability to make amends and put clear water between Windows and macOS. That has yet to adopt AI in a meaningful way.
Speaking at the Intel event, Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s vice president of Windows and devices, said the company was “thinking about how we would rebuild the operational formula to leverage those AI capabilities,” suggesting that it’s possible that more AI will run locally on the NPU. . , which run everything in the cloud.
AMD’s Woligroski said he also believes Microsoft will “bet big” on Windows 12’s Copilot capabilities, and that the company will “leverage the NPU” whenever possible.
With so much uncertainty about what an AI-enabled PC will be able to do, and with a new edition of Windows almost certain to arrive in 2024, it would seem ill-timed to buy a new PC based solely on its AI features right now. It makes more sense to wait for Windows 12 (which will likely be released in the second half of this year) and give developers the chance to start taking advantage of the new AI chips first.
However, if you want to buy a new PC for other reasons, it makes sense to prepare for the long haul by buying an AI PC with this important NPU included. Everyday software will most likely take advantage of this NPU in one fell swoop. one way or another, even if it does something as undeniable as blurring the background of video calls or filtering out background noise from audio recordings. Windows 12 would possibly even require an NPU.
Even if you don’t use AI today, you never know what might come up in the future.