As of May 2024, there is a new trend in Microsoft's approach to personal computers, or the way I see it “Microsoft vision related to AI on PC platform”.
Here is the summary
- The main idea is to have AI not only on Cloud but also to bring AI to the PC platform
- Announcement [3] (dated October 2023) envisions new “AI PC” hardware. Shortly, the new architecture proposes 3 processors in the PC, a Main CPU, a Graphical processor (GPU), and a processor for Neural Networks (NPU- Neural Processing Unit). They talk about 100 million new AI-PCs in 2025. Intel shipped its first “AI PC”s in December 2023, based on “Meteor Lake CPUs”.
- To use AI-enabled PCs, we need software, and here is Microsoft coming into the game
- In its announcement (May 20th, 2024) Microsoft gives its vision of the “Copilot+PC” platform. Basically, they are talking about a PC hardware platform that will be able to execute Microsoft AI software. Microsoft sets hardware requirements even higher than previously mentioned PCs. Microsoft standard “Copilot+PC” requires NPU of at least 40 TOPS (=40x10^12 operations per second). Right now, that requirement can only be met by a single chip in the Windows PC ecosystem, one that isn't even quite available yet: Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus
- The main idea is, that Copilot+ PCs will be able to handle some AI-accelerated workloads like chatbots and image generation locally instead of relying on the cloud.
- Microsoft says that all of the Snapdragon X Plus and Elite-powered PCs being announced today will come with the Copilot+ features pre-installed, and that they'll begin shipping on June 18th.
- Microsoft Office 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams) will be Copilot enabled ([5]). Copilot for Microsoft 365 provides real-time intelligent assistance, enabling users to enhance their creativity, productivity, and skills.
- Microsoft called out some third-party applications for their use of the NPU: DaVinci Resolve (video editing), Cephable (accessibility), Luminar Neo (image editing), WhatsApp (messaging) and CapCut (video and image editing).
- Copilot will enable code generation for developers, there is already an application [6], GitHub Copilot in VS Code
References
[1] Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC just made “AI PCs” obsolete, leaving anyone who bought a 2024 laptop behind
https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/microsofts-copilot-pc-just-made-ai-pcs-obsolete-leaving-anyone-who-bought-a-2024-laptop-behind
[2] Microsoft’s “Copilot+” AI PC requirements are embarrassing for Intel and AMD
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/microsofts-copilot-ai-pc-requirements-are-embarrassing-for-intel-and-amd/
[3] Intel Announces New Program for AI PC Software Developers and Hardware Vendors
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-announces-new-program-for-ai-pc.html#gs.9tt9ck
[4] Everything Microsoft Just Announced: Copilot Plus PCs, Surface Pro and Laptop Running on Qualcomm
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/everything-microsoft-just-announced-copilot-plus-pcs-surface-pro-and-laptop-running-on-qualcomm/#google_vignette
[5] Copilot for Microsoft 365
https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/
[6] GitHub Copilot in VS Code
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/overview