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Intel may not meet the "AI PC"; standard

Translate from : Intel opfylder muligvis ikke "AI PC" standarden

There has been rapid growth in AI adoption and new features like Microsoft Copilot coming to our personal computers. With the growth of artificial intelligence, the standard of internal specifications in modern PCs is correspondingly upgraded. Microsoft has now apparently set 16GB of RAM as the minimum requirement for "AI PCs". Although Microsoft has yet to announce this officially, many rumors suggest it.

Additionally, the growing adoption of LPDDR5x memory suggests that faster RAM is becoming increasingly popular on new PCs! Intel Lunar Lake, which will be the next major processor architecture innovation, may feature an even deeper adoption of LPDDR5x. Currently, Intel Core Ultra-based laptops based on the Meteor Lake architecture support up to DDR5-5600 MHz or LPDDR5x 7467 MHz RAM. According to Trendforce, a 30-35% increase in LPDDR-style memory demand for new laptops is expected as we move into 2024. This upgrade to internal hardware requirements will increase the overall performance and multitasking capabilities of new 2024 PCs, including the latest laptops.

What makes a PC capable of AI?

For now the border is a bit grey. Anything that has a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), found on the latest Intel Core Ultra, Snapdragon X Elite, and new Ryzen 8000G desktop processors, should qualify as an AI-ready PC. However, not all new PCs will meet the new requirements. Besides all this talk about RAM capacity, TrendForce says Microsoft is also setting a minimum benchmark of 40 TOPS (Tera Operations per Second) in AI computing power. When the personal computer meets this, it can be labeled as an 'AI PC.'

In the report, it is mentioned that Intel's recently revealed Core Ultra processors based on Meteor Lake can only provide up to 34 TOPS. This is with the combined power of the CPU, GPU, and NPU. Trendforce says that the new Intel processors therefore fall outside Microsoft's standards.

But AMD's upcoming Strix Point architecture-based Ryzen 8000 processors, along with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processors, are expected to meet those requirements. For Intel, the upcoming Lunar Lake processors will exceed the 40 TOPS requirement.

We already saw various new PCs coming out at CES 2024. These have been repeatedly labeled as 'AI PCs' so it's a bit unclear when the 40 TOPS & 16GB RAM requirement will come into effect, and how it affects PCs already announced by manufacturers that do not meet the 40 TOPS requirement for AI computing.