The AI PC, propelled by Intel’s Meteor Lake, is nearly right here. So why do you have to care?

It’s the billion-dollar query. Intel is constructing NPU AI inferencing engines into its processors starting with its 14th-gen Core chip, Meteor Lake, also called the Core Ultra. Robert Hallock, an AMD veteran now overseeing technical CPU advertising and marketing for Intel’s microprocessors, mentioned Tuesday that Intel’s aim by 2025 is to ship 100 million “AI PCs,” a term Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger began using in July.

Intel announced the architecture behind the 14th-gen Core Ultra chip on Tuesday, the identical day as Intel’s Innovation convention started in San Jose. Intel used the convention to pitch builders each on what an AI-powered future will appear to be, particularly one powered by Intel.

Intel’s Core Ultra is notable for a number of issues, together with its transfer to the Intel 4 course of expertise and the disaggregation of the normal two-die design for 4 separate “tiles” all mounted on an interposer. Moving to Intel 4 helped lower energy by half over the Thirteenth-gen Raptor Lake, assisted by new low-power E-cores. But the important thing addition is the NPU, the AI inferencing engine that may assist deliver AI to the plenty.

Intel

“We see the AI PC as a sea change in tech innovation,” Gelsinger mentioned throughout his opening keynote.

That’s the hope, anyway.

A fourfold technique to win over shoppers

The implicit theme of Intel’s Innovation convention was AI, AI, AI — from Gelsinger’s opening keynote to late afternoon panel discussions. Intel is making an attempt to actually carve out a brand new marketplace for AI on the PC the place none has existed: “This is category creation, at its finest,” Gelsinger mentioned in response to a PCWorld query on how it could do exactly that.

But AI has primarily existed within the cloud, led by ChatGPT, and on smartphones, with portrait mode and varied filters. On PCs, it’s confined to a couple Windows Studio Effects applied sciences. Intel is making an attempt to determine native AI on the PC as one thing that eliminates the spherical journey to and from the cloud whereas being personal sufficient to speak to solely you. But what, precisely? Well, one thing.

The technique seems to be fourfold. First, design the {hardware}. Intel unveiled the design of the NPU to press and analysts at an occasion in Malaysia, promising that the NPU would supply a extra energy-efficient method for processing AI duties than a standalone CPU or a GPU. Done. Intel’s Gelsinger additionally confirmed off 2024’s Meteor Lake successor, Lunar Lake; Arrow Lake, a chip on the 20A course of node, and 2025’s Panther Lake, heading to the fab in 2024 for later manufacturing. The CEO additionally demoed an AI process working on Lunar Lake’s AI engine.

(There’s a slight twist. While Intel talks in regards to the NPU as an “AI engine,” it’s actually just one a part of it; a video codec, for instance, performs decoding and encoding features. There are two components to “AI;” the coaching, and inferencing (predictions) based mostly upon the educated fashions. For now, the AI engines in PC processors can solely carry out inferencing.)

Second, exhibit the AI apps that exist right this moment and tomorrow. Gelsinger’s keynote showcased a number of functions that would use AI in varied capacities: Deep Render, which makes use of AI to compress information by 5X; Rewind.ai, a listening to support that additionally transcribes what it hears for future reference, together with ChatGPT-like queries; and Fabletics, which along with associate Fit:match AI creates a digital avatar of you to strive on garments.

YouTube / Intel

Notably, many of the functions averted the “traditional” makes use of of AI: generative AI art and ChatGPT. Instead, they confirmed off how AI may very well be used to allow revolutionary new functions. (Check out these 12 AI services that can improve your life right now.)

That’s the place the rubber will meet the street. At some time limit, shoppers are going to ask what they’ll truly do with AI. To some extent, that query has been answered with ChatGPT and associated apps. But the following query is why a shopper would want AI on their PC, and never simply by way of a connection to the cloud. It’s that query that Gelsinger’s demos tried to reply, to middling success.

The third a part of Intel’s AI technique seems to attempt to elevate the APIs which allow AI. Executives talked about how the Core Ultra’s NPU would speed up varied APIs, together with OpenVINO, which Intel has helped develop as an AI-centric API. (If a developer helps it, it might probably give Intel a bonus, analysts at Innovation mentioned.)

Mark Hachman / IDG

Finally, ship at scale — in the event you construct it, they may come.

“I’m going to deliver a cadence of products yearly, I’m going to deliver millions of units next year, and I’m going to deliver billions of TOPS (tera operations per second, a measure of computing speed) that developers can design to, and that really opens the ecosystem up,” mentioned Michelle Johnston Holthaus, an Intel government vice chairman and basic supervisor of Intel’s Client Computing Group.

Early days for AI

Will all of it work? Intel executives are additionally reasonable. Gelsinger referred to being within the “first inning” of AI. Hallock mentioned that Intel would launch its first AI/NPU benchmarks in October — with out saying how Intel was anticipated to fare, and even what benchmarks could be used.

The message is that Intel offers open AI, reliable AI, and aggressive AI — however there’s nonetheless quite a bit that Intel seems to be leaving to religion. The query of what “good AI” is, or how shoppers are anticipated to match it to AMD and Qualcomm, is one Intel hasn’t actually answered but.

“I mean, these are substantive gains that we’re seeing for the platform, where we’re quite excited about it, and our products are comfortably ahead of the competition for it,” Gelsinger mentioned in response to PCWorld’s query on how it could promote AI to shoppers. “So we’re going to differentiate on the merits of the products and on the market integration and the work that we do.”

Is that the reply you need? Probably not. But shoppers most likely received’t run out to purchase a Core Ultra laptop computer simply because it has AI, both.

What AI’s fast adoption has taught us, nevertheless, is that after a viral app like ChatGPT takes maintain, everybody rushes to strive it out. Intel (and its rivals) are constructing out AI’s basis, hoping that subsequent viral app is ready within the wings.

Disclosure: Details of the Meteor Lake structure have been unveiled at an Intel occasion in Penang, Malaysia. Intel paid for PCWorld to fly there, plus meals and airfare. PCWorld retained editorial independence all through the method. This story was up to date at 2:45 PM on Sept. 20 with extra particulars.