Businesses are the main users of AI PCs, according to George Chacko, Director of Global Account Sales at Intel for the Asia-Pacific region, who highlighted productivity improvements.
The question now is, to whom will PC manufacturers sell these devices, since the first wave of AI PCs are about to hit the market? In the meantime, Intel already knows who will dominate the early launch stage of the AI PC market.
“Those seeking immediate productivity gains will be found in the business sector, and they will be the first to adopt it, so they will be the immediate beneficiaries.” George Chacko, Intel’s Director of Global Account Sales, APJ, outlined the reasons corporations will embrace AI PCs due to the devices’ ability to boost productivity and efficiency.
However, Chacko noted that while businesses would quickly adopt computers tailored for artificial intelligence-heavy workloads, consumer adoption of AI PCs may take some time. On the fringes of a Lenovo event in Bangkok, Thailand, Chacko told indianexpress.com, “There might be a few steps of correction along the way, but the uptake will be much faster.” The concerns were about security, data privacy, and usage.
Intel has been discussing for months a new kind of personal computer that would be driven by new chips like Intel’s Core Ultra with specialized “Neural Processor Units” (NPUs), together with Microsoft and PC manufacturers like Lenovo and others. Instead of contacting cloud servers, these PCs, often known as “AI PCs,” include AI capabilities that can help expedite AI work locally (such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot).
“You are working locally when you use your PC for the task. That is not only quicker but also more effective. Moreover, you can run off a highly customized version of your local language model that is tailored specifically for enterprise use. I think there are benefits, and I think local business is the way of the future,” he remarked.
Artificial intelligence has long been used to enhance PC functions, most of which are background operations like power and battery management, microphone noise reduction, and video upscaling. But in the new era of generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs) can leverage foundationally optimized AI apps to provide human-like responses to users’ questions with straightforward instructions. It’s crucial to understand, though, that processing doesn’t happen on the computer whether you use ChatGPT, use Copilot on Windows 11, or communicate with a well-known AI chatbot. Rather, all of that work takes place in a data center, as running an AI model demands a lot of resources.
With little to no cloud support, you may carry out Gen AI tasks locally with the Stable Diffusion text-to-image model or the LLAMA large language model. To run those on-device generative artificial intelligence apps, you will still want a PC with a better CPU and GPU to get the necessary results.
According to Chacko, Intel hopes to produce mainstream computers that can run these genAI models locally. These computers would be powered by its Core Ultra processor, which has a unique neural processing unit, or NPU. Therefore, even if the current generation of “AI PCs” might not be able to fully meet Microsoft’s performance requirements, we are making progress in terms of hardware. But even with a dedicated NPU and AI branding on PCs, software isn’t quite ready to take advantage of “AI PCs” just yet. Although Windows 11 does not interact with the NPU found in those AI PCs, Microsoft may be promoting a new Copilot key as part of the push for AI PCs. AI PCs might not come true until Windows receives an AI makeover and programs like Copilot are installed locally on computers.
According to Chacko, the October launch of Intel’s AI PC acceleration initiative will hasten the process of optimizing software and apps for use with the company’s AI PCs. With the help of an AI PC developer program, the acceleration program’s goal of piquing software developers’ interest in AI-powered features for their products is now being extended to smaller developers. With the AI PC acceleration program, Intel is also aiming to assist hardware manufacturers in optimizing and enabling their hardware for Intel’s AI PCs.
Intel is attempting to adapt to the rapidly evolving deployment of AI across key products and services with its on-device strategy and the Gen AI makeover of PCs. The business wants to sell 100 million AI PCs by 2025 as the tech sector searches for the next big thing to spur personal computer sales, which have been declining recently.
However, the competition is getting hotter as Qualcomm prepares to release new laptops powered on the Snapdragon X Elite, which might significantly improve Windows on Arm’s performance. Chrome users on Qualcomm-powered Windows laptops—which are expected to be ready in the second half of the year—should expect an improved experience with the optimized version of Google’s browser that was released this week for Windows on Arm. At their respective developer conferences in the upcoming months, Apple and Microsoft are anticipated to reveal their AI strategies in full. At these events, we may get a close-up look at software and potentially even new AI hardware.
When asked which app will drive sales of AI PCs, Chacko said, “Everyone is looking for a killer app in the consumer space, and we say the killer app is the choice.” You would be drawn to one piece of software, I would be drawn to another, a content developer to a third, and a photo editor to a fourth. Thus, the killer app is a decision for us.
