Will Microsoft Spark a Wave of AI-Powered PCs?

Last week, Microsoft has launched a line of artificial intelligence (AI)-ready personal computers.

New discoveries by Morgan Stanley — which was the subject of a report published Sunday (May 26) by Seeking Alpha — says the tech giant’s deployment could pave the way for a new wave of PC sales.

“We believe the commercial PC market will be the first to adopt AI PCs given that they are being marketed primarily as productivity tools,” the Morgan Stanley report said.

The report cites a number of factors that could accelerate PC sales in the second half of this year and through 2025: an initial price of $1,000 or more, an installed base of commercial PCs 13% larger than before the pandemic and Windows 10 on hold. relaxation.

According to Morgan Stanley, 75% of CIOs in Europe and the United States are evaluating or considering evaluating AI PCs. The bank’s initial AI PC forecast predicts that new computers will account for 2% of total PCs this year before rising to 64% by 2028.

As PYMNTS wrote last week, Microsoft’s new “Copilot+ PCs” — a new iteration of Windows machines designed to locally manage generative AI processes — show that the company is “betting that the future of computer science ” will be powered by AI – and that users will want to have this intelligence at their fingertips rather than in the cloud.

Created in collaboration with chipmakers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), these AI-powered PCs feature neural processing units capable of delivering 40 tera operations per second, 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage.

As noted here, the move toward local AI processing on personal computers represents a key shift in the industry. As AI applications become more prevalent, it becomes increasingly necessary to solve problems such as data privacy and performance bottlenecks associated with cloud-based processing. By equipping personal computers with hardware dedicated to AI tasks, Microsoft hopes to provide users with a more secure and efficient computing experience.

“However, it remains to be seen how well these machines will perform in real-world scenarios and whether they will justify the potentially higher costs associated with advanced hardware,” PYMNTS wrote.

Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pushed back on the idea of ​​human-like AI assistants last week, telling Bloomberg Television: “I don’t like Anthropomorphizing AI. I kind of believe it’s a tool.

In fact, he thinks the very term “artificial intelligence” is a misnomer.

“I wish we called it ‘different intelligence,'” Nadella said. “Because I have my intelligence. I don’t need artificial intelligence.

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