Microsoft announces Copilot Plus PCs with integrated AI hardware
For the US tech company, it is the start of a new generation of Windows laptops. The first models are powered by Qualcomm and not Intel.
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Microsoft is integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its laptops. On Monday, the US tech company announced a new computer category called Copilot Plus PC, in which AI plays a key role. These are Windows laptops with integrated AI hardware and support for AI functions throughout the operating system.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described Copilot Plus PCs as "the fastest, most AI-enabled PCs ever built". All of Microsoft's major laptop partners, including Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, HP, Acer and Asus, will launch their own Copilot Plus PCs, Nadella announced on Monday at the launch event at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft then presented two of its own devices with integrated AI as part of the Surface range: the new Surface Pro and the Surface Laptop. Both devices are equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite chips. These are equipped with a Qualcomm Hexagon Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that can perform 45 trillion computing operations per second. The powerful neural processors make the integrated AI functions possible in the first place.
According to tech portal The Verge, one of the most important new functions is the so-called "Recall" function, which uses AI to create a searchable "photographic memory" of everything users have done and seen on their PC. The data remains on the PC and is not used to train Microsoft's AI models, writes tech blog Engadget. More than 40 AI models will run on the laptops as part of Windows 11 to support the new functions. Microsoft's integrated AI assistant, Copilot, will also support OpenAI's GPT-4o model, which was recently introduced.
Beginning of a new era
Microsoft is touting the Copilot Plus devices as the beginning of a new era of Windows laptops. The new AI features are designed to work with any processor hardware, writes The Verge, concluding: "These are two big bets on unproven hardware and software, but they have the potential to be transformative if they work."
The new laptops will be "58 percent faster" than a MacBook Air with an M3 processor, said Yusuf Mehdi, the Microsoft manager responsible for Windows, at the launch. It remained unclear whether this applies to all Copilot Plus PC laptops or only to the models that are being converted to Qualcomm processors. Apple, for its part, has already launched more powerful M3 chips in its laptops and an M4 chip, which was recently introduced in the new iPad Pro.
According to Microsoft, Copilot Plus PCs must meet certain technical requirements in order to deliver the promised performance. They must have at least a 256 GB SSD, an integrated neural processor and 16 GB of RAM. The Arm-based models with Qualcomm chips should therefore have a battery life that enables up to 15 hours of active Internet use. The first Copilot Plus PCs with Qualcomm processors are expected to be launched on June 18. Models with Intel and AMD processors will be released at a later date.
(akn)
