The concept of an ‘AI PC’, or PC with artificial intelligence, is the big news in the personal computer industry for 2024. An ‘AI PC’ is a computer that is capable of performing various AI-related tasks without the need to access external servers. It is certain that Microsoft will integrate several AI features into Windows, but the CPUs must be able to handle the greater processing demands so that these features can be used locally.
Therefore, the main chip manufacturers have already started to position their products for this market. The first was Intel with the new Core Ultra, which include an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) to accelerate AI-related tasks. But there was still no official definition for the processing power required for a computer to be considered an ‘AI PC’. Until now.
This week, Microsoft and Intel concretely defined what an ‘AI PC’ is, which gives PC makers precise instructions for building their own products. According to news published on the Tom’s Hardware website, the main requirement for this certification is the presence of a CPU set with NPU, which is capable of having a minimum performance of 40 TOPS (Trillions of Operations per Second).
According to Intel, with this level of performance, software such as Microsoft’s Copilot can be run directly on the computer, eliminating the need for Internet access. However, in statements to Tom’s Hardware, Intel says that this will only be possible with “next generation” chips such as Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake, which should hit the market later this year.
Intel and Microsoft say that in addition to the new CPUs, an ‘AI PC’ must also have the new Copilot key.
Although this definition has now been announced, ‘AI PC’ should only start to be sold after the launch of new chips, because current CPUs with NPUs from Intel and AMD cannot reach 40 TOPS. AMD’s laptop CPUs reach 39 TOPS and Intel’s 34 and chips from both brands with NPU are not yet available for desktop computers.
