9621 Agnes Crossing, Lake Suzanneview, New Mexico Island 84604-9295.
40 TOPS and 16 GB RAM, that is the minimum requirement for Copilot Plus that every PC manufacturer must adhere to. Seven manufacturers are on board. Remember the
40 TOPS and 16 GB RAM, that is the minimum requirement for Copilot Plus that every PC manufacturer must adhere to. Seven manufacturers are on board.
Remember the big AI PC announcement with the new Intel Core Ultra chips earlier this year? You can already call it “old” because six months later Microsoft released its official specification as the Copilot Plus PC. The minimum requirement: 40 TOPS (trillion operations per second) provided by an NPU.
What is an NPU? At its core, it is a specialized processor designed specifically to run machine learning algorithms. Unlike traditional CPUs and GPUs, NPUs are optimized to perform complex mathematical calculations that are part of artificial neural networks.
They excel at processing massive amounts of data in parallel, making them ideal for tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, and other AI-related functions.
The announcement of the Copilot Plus PC coincides with the introduction of Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips in devices from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft and Samsung. This ARM chip appears in a Plus and Elite variant in different flavors, each with 45 TOPS on board.
For comparison: the first AI PCs with Intel Core Ultra chips on board “only” had 11 TOPS on board. That’s not enough, which is why the current range of PCs coming onto the market don’t meet the Copilot Plus specification.
Is that important? Theoretically not yet. On the Microsoft blog you’ll see some unique features, but nothing earth-shattering. On the other hand: What isn’t there can still come. One of the new features that Microsoft is announcing is Recall. This is an AI-powered tool that allows you to track every step you take on your PC using a timeline.
The recall is a first foretaste of what could come. Microsoft’s focus is now firmly on Copilot Plus and the number of new features will increase quickly.
AMD and Intel are now rushing to meet the minimum requirement. Things remain quiet in the AMD camp for the time being, but Intel emphasizes that Lunar Lake, the next chip generation, will be ready by Q3 2024 and will deliver at least 45 TOPS.
The fact that Microsoft is launching the Copilot Plus specification with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips could cause confusion. Qualcomm supplies ARM chips, but the specification does not require this. The focus there is only on at least 16 GB of RAM and 40 TOPS. Every Copilot Plus PC also has a Microsoft Pluton security chip on board.
The new ARM chips require a native Arm64 experience with compatible applications in Windows 11. Microsoft already has many ARM-native applications ready in its own stable: Teams, PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, Excel, OneDrive and OneNote. Today, Chrome, Spotify, Zoom, WhatsApp, Blender, Affinity Suite and DaVinci Resolve, among others, are already compatible.
The Prism emulator allows you to efficiently run non-compatible (traditional) x86 applications in Windows 11 on ARM. Theoretically, you could use the new Copilot Plus PCs with the Qualcomm chips as if they were conventional PCs with an Intel or AMD chip. The emulator is activated if the application is not ARM compatible.
The only disadvantage: an emulator will never be as energy efficient and performant as a native application. You probably won’t achieve the promised battery life of 22 hours for watching videos and 15 hours for surfing the Internet using emulation on some models.
Ultimately, all we know now is the theory. Copilot Plus is a new specification and the new Qualcomm Snapdragon Are the chips as good as Microsoft makes them out to be?
In its presentation, it touts numbers like “20% more battery life than a MacBook Air 15-inch with M3 chip.” Elsewhere it says that Qualcomm’s new ARM chip “performs up to 58% better in long-term multithreaded performance.”
The first Copilot Plus PCs with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X ARM chip will begin shipping on June 19th. Since this is the fourth time that Microsoft has tried to make an ARM chip a success, we recommend waiting. The fact that all manufacturers are now on board, often with more than one device, gives hope that Apple’s ARM chips will soon face competition.
Source: IT Daily
As an experienced journalist and author, Mary has been reporting on the latest news and trends for over 5 years. With a passion for uncovering the stories behind the headlines, Mary has earned a reputation as a trusted voice in the world of journalism. Her writing style is insightful, engaging and thought-provoking, as she takes a deep dive into the most pressing issues of our time.
