One of Microsoft's distinct advantages in the AI ​​race is its Windows operating system, which gives the company a huge base of PC users.

Earlier this year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella asserted that 2024 would mark AI becoming “a premium component of every PC.”

The company has offered its Copilot chatbot assistant in its Bing search engine and in its paid Office suite.

At the upcoming event, PC users will learn more about how AI is embedded in Windows and what they can do on devices called AI PCs.

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The focus of this event was how Microsoft is embedding AI into Windows. Photo: Gadinsider

Microsoft's event comes days after Google I/O, where the search giant unveiled its most powerful AI model yet and showed off how its Gemini AI works on computers and phones. Earlier, OpenAI also unveiled its GPT-4o model.

For Microsoft, it faces two challenges: maintaining its prominence in AI and boosting PC sales, which have been in the doldrums for the past two years following a pandemic-induced upgrade cycle.

Technology industry research firm Gartner estimates that PC shipments rose 0.9% in the quarter after years of declines. PC demand was “a little better than expected,” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said last month.

Microsoft’s new AI tools could be a reason for enterprise customers to replace their old PCs. “While Copilot for Windows will not directly drive revenue, we believe it will drive Windows adoption and stickiness,” Bernstein analysts said.

In addition to some AI tasks that will be handled in the cloud, the Windows giant will use AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm chips for offline tasks, such as giving Copilot a voice command to summarize a piece of content without a network connection.

Intel still controls 78% of the PC chip market, followed by AMD with 13%, according to recent data from Canalys.

PC AI

The most important additional hardware on an AI PC is called a neural processing unit (NPU), which is designed to optimize AI tasks and is capable of outperforming traditional central processing units (CPUs).

Computers powered by Intel's latest Lunar Lake chips with dedicated NPUs are expected to launch in late 2024. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips with NPUs will be available in the middle of this year, while AMD's latest Ryzen Pro is expected to launch this quarter.

Intel says the chips enable things like “real-time language translation, automated inference, and advanced gaming environment reconstruction.”

Apple has been using NPUs for years and is expected to bring the M4 chip to its next Mac lineup this year.

Qualcomm, meanwhile, is not playing the same role as Intel or AMD. It provides processors with architectures designed by Arm. This event could also explain how Windows versions running on traditional chips and those running on Arm architecture differ.

The benefits of Arm designs include longer battery life, thinner designs, and other benefits like cellular connectivity, but the downside is that they're not compatible with most current Windows apps, like the Snapdragon 835 chip from 2018.

Microsoft has since improved Windows to handle traditional apps on Arm, but there are still many questions surrounding it. The company even has a dedicated FAQ page for computers running on ARM hardware.

(According to CNBC)

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