Qualcomm leads the charge in Microsoft’s AI-powered PC initiative

Microsoft is advancing its AI PC agenda by partnering with Qualcomm to use their Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus system-on-chips (SoCs) in the next-generation Surface Laptop and Pro tablets, among other Copilot+ PCs. These new Arm-compatible processors from Qualcomm, featuring 4nm X Elite and Plus chips made by TSMC, are designed with CPU core technology from Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired in 2021. The X Elite has 12 CPU cores and can clock up to 4.2 GHz for dual cores, while the X Plus has ten CPU cores and can reach up to 3.4 GHz for all cores. Microsoft touts the performance of the X Elite-equipped Surface Laptop compared to Apple’s MacBook Air M3, emphasizing multithreaded performance but noting that Apple’s M3 offers higher single-core performance.

Microsoft’s new Surfaces come with an emulation layer called Prism to run legacy x86 applications on the Arm cores. The company claims that with this layer, the new Surfaces are faster than the older Arm-based Surface Pro 9. Native versions of popular apps like Office, Chrome, and Spotify are available for Arm processors, with more on the way from Adobe. Microsoft also highlighted new AI features enabled by the NPUs in the Qualcomm SoCs, such as on-device art generation in Paint and live captions.

While Qualcomm’s NPU performance currently surpasses Apple’s M3, Apple’s upcoming M4 SoCs are expected to offer even higher NPU performance. Microsoft’s Recall feature, showcased at the event, aims to automatically record and encrypt user desktop activity for AI-based retrieval. However, concerns about privacy have been raised regarding this feature.

Qualcomm’s X Plus and X Elite chips provide Microsoft with the NPU capabilities needed to drive its AI PC agenda, but they also highlight a divergence from Arm’s trajectory. Arm is unhappy with Qualcomm’s use of Nuvia-designed Arm-compatible CPU cores, leading to a lawsuit over licensing issues. Qualcomm’s decision to focus on NPU acceleration rather than integrating AI features into the CPU architecture aligns with their push for Armv8 processors, while Arm promotes Armv9 with built-in AI acceleration instructions.

The tech industry is facing a potential split between companies like Microsoft and Qualcomm focusing on custom AI acceleration units and Arm promoting integrated AI features in Armv9. Developers are navigating this landscape to balance portability and performance on Arm-based systems. As Microsoft embraces Qualcomm’s Armv8 chips for AI functions, Apple continues to lead with its Armv9-based M4 SoCs, highlighting the diverse approaches within the industry.

Article Source
https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/21/qualcomm_windows_microsoft/