ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual solutions, introduces the LX700-4K Laser Projector for Xbox. Designed exclusively for Xbox, the LX7004K features native 4K Ultra HD resolution, 3,500 lumens of brightness, and built-in Harman Kardon speakers for immersive big-screen audio and video experiences with images up to 300-inches.

ViewSonic again partnered with Microsoft to deliver the best gaming experience to Xbox series X/S consoles to develop the LX700-4K laser projector. It is compatible with the Xbox CEC (consumer electronics control), and features Xbox-exclusive resolution and refresh rate combinations. When used with other video sources, the LX700-4K runs with a 4.2 ms response time and 240 Hz refresh rate for super smooth gaming or video playback.

Today, during the latest Xbox Partner Preview broadcast—as a surprise for Xbox gamers everywhere—GSC Game World launched the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Legends of the Zone Trilogy for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S (via backwards compatibility). That's right - it's available today! The Legends of the Zone Trilogy bundle—available on the Microsoft Store for $39.99 USD—includes all three iconic games that make up the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Trilogy: Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat—or you can pick up each of the games individually for $19.99 USD each. Every element from the original games has been maintained and faithfully ported to console thanks to the hard work of GSC Game World and their partners at Mataboo. This all makes for a great opportunity for Xbox gamers everywhere to get some foundational knowledge of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s universe in the lead-up to the launch of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, coming day one to Game Pass on September 5, 2024.

But translating these hardcore PC games to an Xbox controller has been no small feat. For a series that is known for blending a variety of genres like horror, first-person shooter, exploration, and immersive sim, it was important for the team to get it right. Speaking with GSC Game World PR Specialist Zakhar Bocharov, we wanted to learn more about what this process was like, bringing these cult-classic, hardcore PC titles to console, and some of the innovative design and UI adjustments the team had to make to bring all three games to Xbox.

Batter up, friends! We've got the next round of games coming soon to your download and install queue. Whether you want to bend reality in Control, check out Bikini Bottom, or more, we have your bases covered… er… loaded! Let's play ball!!

Available Today
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (Cloud, Console, and PC)—Load up your Boltgun and unleash the awesome Space Marine arsenal to blast your way through an explosion of sprites, pixels and blood in a perfect blend of Warhammer 40,000, frenetic gameplay and the stylish visuals of '90s retro shooters.

We're thrilled to announce that Toys for Bob is spinning off as an independent game development studio! Over the years, we've inspired love, joy, and laughter for the inner child in all gamers. We pioneered new IP and hardware technologies in Skylanders. We raised the bar for best-in-class remasters in Spyro Reignited Trilogy. We've taken Crash Bandicoot to innovative, critically acclaimed new heights.

With the same enthusiasm and passion, we believe that now is the time to take the studio and our future games to the next level. This opportunity allows us to return to our roots of being a small and nimble studio. To make this news even more exciting, we're exploring a possible partnership between our new studio and Microsoft. And while we're in the early days of developing our next new game and a ways away from making any announcements, our team is excited to develop new stories, new characters, and new gameplay experiences.

Straight from the vault, we're thrilled to unveil the all-new Xbox Wireless Controller - Fallout, ready for you exclusively at Xbox Design Lab! Get ready to dive into the immersive world of one of gaming's most beloved franchises. This Fallout-themed controller is a heartfelt tribute to the iconic character from the series we all adore, Vault Boy, showcasing each of his unique S.P.E.C.I.A.L. traits. Secure your spot in the wasteland and get your hands on this epic addition to your gaming arsenal today!

This controller is designed with a collage of some of the most iconic Vault Boy perk icons from throughout the franchise's history. The white background with the grey etchings of the character allows the design to incorporate all these memorable moments, while still leaving space for you to add all of the colors you love! The blue and yellow colored Vault Boy and Vault-Tec decal surrounding the Xbox button fully tie in the aesthetic that visually represents the post-apocalyptic games. And if you look close enough, you can also find some hidden Easter eggs in the collage that you don't want to miss!

TrendForce underscores that the primary momentum for server shipments this year remains with American CSPs. However, due to persistently high inflation and elevated corporate financing costs curtailing capital expenditures, overall demand has not yet returned to pre-pandemic growth levels. Global server shipments are estimated to reach approximately. 13.654 million units in 2024, an increase of about 2.05% YoY. Meanwhile, the market continues to focus on the deployment of AI servers, with their shipment share estimated at around 12.1%.

Foxconn is expected to see the highest growth rate, with an estimated annual increase of about 5-7%. This growth includes significant orders such as Dell's 16G platform, AWS Graviton 3 and 4, Google Genoa, and Microsoft Gen9. In terms of AI server orders, Foxconn has made notable inroads with Oracle and has also secured some AWS ASIC orders.

As GDC, the world's largest game developer conference, returns to San Francisco, Microsoft and Xbox will be there to engage and empower developers, publishers, and technology partners across the industry. We are committed to supporting game developers on any platform, anywhere in the world, at every stage of development. Our message is simple: Microsoft and Xbox are here to help power your games and empower your teams. From March 18 - 22, the Xbox Lobby Lounge in the Moscone Center South can't be missed—an easy meeting point, and a first step toward learning more about the ID@Xbox publishing program, the Developer Acceleration Program (DAP) for underrepresented creators, Azure cloud gaming services, and anything else developers might need.

GDC features dozens of speakers from across Xbox, Activision, Blizzard, King and ZeniMax who will demonstrate groundbreaking in-game innovations and share community-building strategies. Microsoft technology teams, with support from partners, will also host talks that spotlight new tools, software and services that help increase developer velocity, grow player engagement and help creators grow. See below for the Conference programming details.

Samsung Electronics is making 2024 the year of the AI PC with the release of its most powerful and intelligent Galaxy Book product line yet, the Galaxy Book4 series. This latest lineup—consisting of the Galaxy Book4 Ultra, Galaxy Book4 Pro and Galaxy Book4 Pro 360—offers intelligent performance, enhanced security and a vivid, interactive display, all in an ultra-portable design. From the new Intel Core Ultra Processor to the suite of AI features, the Galaxy Book4 series is packed with cutting-edge technology that aims to not only simplify but amplify users' computing experience.

Visitors discovered the Galaxy Book4 series' full capabilities inside Samsung's booth at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024, the world's largest mobile exhibition held from February 26-29 in Barcelona, Spain. Samsung Newsroom sat down with Mincheol Lee, Head of Galaxy Eco Biz Team, Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics, and David Feng, Vice President of Client Computing Group and General Manager of Client Segments at Intel, to explore how the advancements in the Galaxy Book4 series can enrich the lives of users.

Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, has insisted (on multiple occasions) that leaked Xbox product roadmaps are not a true representation of currently in-progress hardware at the company's Redmond, Washington headquarters. Internal documentation (from 2022) suggested that Microsoft had long term plans for physical media-less next-gen Xbox consoles, as well as a 2024 launch of an "adorably all-digital" Xbox Series X refresh. Early February news reports suggested that a few retail outlets had stopped selling Xbox physical media, due to low sales and a perception that Microsoft's console ecosystem prioritizes digital purchases. Spencer addressed ongoing rumors during a discussion with Game File: "We are supportive of physical media, but we don't have a need to drive that disproportionate to customer demand...We ship games physically and digitally, and we're really just following what the customers are doing. And I think our job in running Xbox is to deliver on the things that a majority of the customers want. And right now, a majority of our customers are buying games digitally."

Exputer's eXtas1s—a tipster specializing in all things Xbox, Bethesda and Activision Blizzard—reckons that the aforementioned Xbox Series X refresh is due to launch this summer: "Microsoft is currently working to release a white-colored Xbox Series X with no disc reader, sources close to eXputer have revealed...This all-digital console is expected to be released sometime between the upcoming months of June and July, but there are chances for a slight delay on that front as well." Allegedly, confidential footage has been distributed within insider networks. The Exputer report suggests that the proposed digital refresh could be "$50 to $100" cheaper than the current MSRP of $499.99 for an Xbox Series X 1 TB model. An improved heatsink and modernized wireless network card are mentioned as possible internal upgrades. Games industry watchdogs reckon that Microsoft is attempting to compete with Sony's digital-only PlayStation 5 models—the Xbox Series S is not considered to be a direct competitor here, due to its lesser specifications.

Introducing game hubs. Earlier this month, we started rolling out game hubs to Xbox Insiders on PC and a subset of Xbox App on PC players worldwide. Game hubs were built on your feedback around depth, progression, and more ways to connect with your games. With game hubs, you'll be able to track your progress over time, discover the latest content and add-ons, connect or compete with your friends, get the latest news from developers, and more. This version of game hubs is just the beginning. We have another wave of updates coming soon, including ways to view your local game captures and browse other games from the same publisher.
We can't wait to hear your feedback on what's there now and what you'd like to see in future updates. You can access game hubs from the Xbox App on PC—just click on the game in your library or the left sidebar. Now, let's run through some of the exciting content you will find here:

The essentials. At the top of the page, you'll see the essentials like game info alongside options to play, install, or update the game. You'll also see a quick link back to the details page, where you can purchase the game to own, see reviews, or add it to your wish list. Lastly, you'll find information like when you last played, your total playtime, an achievement summary, and friend overviews. This area will also be used for important notifications like letting you know when a game is leaving Game Pass so that you can use your discount before it's gone.

Tech giant Microsoft and Paris-based startup Mistral AI, an innovator in open-source AI model development, have announced a new multi-year partnership to accelerate AI innovation and expand access to Mistral's state-of-the-art models. The collaboration will leverage Azure's cutting-edge AI infrastructure to propel Mistral's research and bring its innovations to more customers globally. The partnership focuses on three core areas. First, Microsoft will provide Mistral with Azure AI supercomputing infrastructure to power advanced AI training and inference for Mistral's flagship models like Mistral-Large. Second, the companies will collaborate on AI research and development to push AI model's boundaries. And third, Azure's enterprise capabilities will give Mistral additional opportunities to promote, sell, and distribute their models to Microsoft customers worldwide.

However, an investment in a European startup can not go smoothly without the constant eyesight of the European Union authorities and regulators to oversee the deal. According to Bloomberg, an EU spokesperson on Tuesday claimed that the EU regulators will perform an analysis of Microsoft's investment into Mistral after receiving a copy of the agreement between the two parties. While there is no formal investigation yet, if EU regulators continue to probe Microsoft's deal and intentions, they could launch a complete formal investigation that could lead to the termination of Microsoft's plans. Of course, the formal investigation is still on hold, but investing in EU startups might become unfeasible for American tech giants if the EU regulators continue to push the scrutiny of every investment made in companies based on EU soil.

According to a Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2024 schedule page, Microsoft is planning to present next-gen technologies with their upcoming "DirectX State of the Union Ft. Work Graphs and Introducing DirectSR" presentation. Shawn Hargreaves, Direct3D's Development Manager and Austin Kinross (PIX Developer Lead, Microsoft) are scheduled to discuss matters with representatives from NVIDIA and AMD. Wessam Bahnassi, a "20-year veteran in 3D engine design and optimization," is Team Green's Principal Engineer of Developer Technology. Rob Martin, a Fellow Software Engineer, will be representing all things Team Red—where he leads development on implementations for GPU Work Graphs. According to GDC, the intended audience will be: "graphics developers or technical directors from game studios or engine companies."

Earlier this month, an "Automatic super resolution" feature was discovered in Windows 11 Insider Preview build (24H2)—the captioned part stated: "use AI to make supported games play more smoothly with enhanced details," although further interface options granted usage in desktop applications as well. Initial analysis and user impressions indicated that Microsoft engineers had created a proprietary model, separate from familiar technologies: NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR and Intel XeSS. It is interesting to note that Team Blue is not participating in the upcoming March 21 "DirectX State of the Union" panel discussion (a sponsored session). GDC's event description states (in full): "The DirectX team will showcase the latest updates, demos, and best practices for game development with key partners from AMD and NVIDIA. Work graphs are the newest way to take full advantage of GPU hardware and parallelize workloads. Microsoft will provide a preview into DirectSR, making it easier than ever for game devs to scale super resolution support across Windows devices. Finally, dive into the latest tooling updates for PIX."

We on the Age of Empires team want to say a huge thank you to our 50 million players around the world. 2023 was a huge year for our games and our community. We wanted to share a look at what there is to look forward to in 2024 and we've just wrapped our New Year, New Age show which did just that. If you watched, thank you for joining us! If you weren't able to join us live, or you just want a reminder of all the things we covered, here's what's coming this year.

Age of Mythology: Retold is another title that got its debut at our 25th anniversary. Since then, we've continued to develop this exciting reimagining of fan favorite Age of Mythology. Art Director Melinda Rose gave players worldwide their first look at Retold via three in-game units, brought to life through amazing AR technology. Showcasing Medusa, Pegasus and Cerberus from the Greek pantheon, Melinda took us through how each unit has been updated, given completely new art and even had gameplay tweaks that will intensify their strengths and unique powers making them even more important in your strategy. They will be stronger, faster, bigger and bolder. We are also beyond thrilled to announce that players do not have long to wait. Age of Mythology: Retold is coming to Xbox consoles and PC in 2024 and is available to wishlist on Steam now!

Apple's M-series chips frighten Intel, AMD, and Microsoft like nothing else can, as they have the potential to power MacBooks to grab a sizable share of the notebook market share. This is based squarely on the phenomenal performance/Watt on offer with Apple's chips. A user installed Windows 11 Arm on a virtual machine running on an M2-powered MacBook, opened up CPU-Z (which of course doesn't detect the chip since it's on a VM). They then ran a CPU-Z Bench session for a surprising result—a single-threaded score of 749.5 points, with a multithreaded score of 3822.3 points.

The single-thread score in particular is comparable to Intel's 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" chips (their "Golden Cove" P-cores); maybe not on the fastest Core i9-12900K, but of the mid-range Core i5 chips, such as the i5-12600. It's able to do this at a fraction of the power and heat output. It is on the backs of this kind of IPC that Apple is building bigger chips such as the M3 Pro and M3 Max, which are able to provide HEDT or workstation-class performance, again, at a fraction of the power.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, speaking at the Intel Foundry Services (IFS) Direct Connect event, confirmed to Tom's Hardware that he hopes to turn IFS into the West's premier foundry company, and a direct technological and volume rival to TSMC. He said that there is a clear line of distinction between Intel Products and Intel Foundry, and that later this year, IFS will be more legally distinct from Intel, becoming its own entity. The only way Gelsinger sees IFS being competitive to TSMC, is by making its most advanced semiconductor manufacturing nodes and 3D chip packaging innovations available to foundry customers other than itself (Intel Products), even if it means providing them to companies that directly compete with Intel products, such as AMD and Qualcomm.

Paul Alcorn of Tom's Hardware asked CEO Gelsinger "Intel will now offer its process nodes to some of its competitors, and there may be situations wherein your product teams are competing directly with competitors that are enabled by your crown jewels. How do you plan to navigate those types of situations and maybe soothe ruffled feathers on your product teams?" To this, Gelsinger responded "Well, if you go back to the picture I showed today, Paul, there are Intel products and Intel foundry, There's a clean line between those, and as I said on the last earnings call, we'll have a setup separate legal entity for Intel foundry this year," Gelsinger responded. "We'll start posting separate financials associated with that going forward. And the foundry team's objective is simple: Fill. The. Fabs. Deliver to the broadest set of customers on the planet."

At Xbox, we strive to create games that inspire, entertain, and connect players from around the world. As a publisher and platform we are committed to meeting players where they are, by bringing more games, to more people, and on more devices. And at the heart of all we do are our players, and the vibrant communities that they build around the games they love.

Today we are announcing that four fan-favorite Xbox games will be coming to Nintendo Switch and Sony platforms this spring. The studios that built these celebrated games have drawn on their multi-platform experience to open the worlds they created to even more players and communities.

Last year, Arm introduced its Neoverse Compute Subsystem (CSS) for the N2 and V2 series of data center processors, providing a reference platform for the development of efficient Arm-based chips. Major cloud service providers like AWS with Graviton 4 and Trainuium 2, Microsoft with Cobalt 100 and Maia 100, and even NVIDIA with Grace CPU and Bluefield DPUs are already utilizing custom Arm server CPU and accelerator designs based on the CSS foundation in their data centers. The CSS allows hyperscalers to optimize Arm processor designs specifically for their workloads, focusing on efficiency rather than outright performance. Today, Arm has unveiled the next generation CSS N3 and V3 for even greater efficiency and AI inferencing capabilities. The N3 design provides up to 32 high-efficiency cores per die with improved branch prediction and larger caches to boost AI performance by 196%, while the V3 design scales up to 64 cores and is 50% faster overall than previous generations.

Both the N3 and V3 leverage advanced features like DDR5, PCIe 5.0, CXL 3.0, and chiplet architecture, continuing Arm's push to make chiplets the standard for data center and cloud architectures. The chiplet approach enables customers to connect their own accelerators and other chiplets to the Arm cores via UCIe interfaces, reducing costs and time-to-market. Looking ahead, Arm has a clear roadmap for its Neoverse platform. The upcoming CSS V4 "Adonis" and N4 "Dionysus" designs will build on the improvements in the N3 and V3, advancing Arm's goal of greater efficiency and performance using optimized chiplet architectures. As more major data center operators introduce custom Arm-based designs, the Neoverse CSS aims to provide a flexible, efficient foundation to power the next generation of cloud computing.

Windows 11 version 23H2 started rolling out last October, but many users of Microsoft's flagship operating system opted out of an upgrade, thanks to a handy "optional" toggle. News outlets have latched onto a freshly published (February 20) Windows 11 "Release Health" notice—the official Microsoft dashboard alert states that Windows 11 2023 Update: "is now entering a new rollout phase." Fastidious users will not be happy to discover that "eligible Windows 11 devices" are now subject to an automatic bump up to version 23H2. Very passive-aggressive tactics have been utilized in the past—Microsoft is seemingly eager to get it audience upgraded onto its latest and greatest feature-rich experience.

According to NeoWin, an official announcement from last week alerted users to an "impending end of optional preview updates on Windows 11 22H2." Yesterday's "23H2" dashboard confessional provided a little bit more context—unsurprisingly involving artificial intelligence: "This automatic update targets Windows 11 devices that have reached or are approaching end of servicing, and it follows the machine learning-based (ML) training we have utilized so far. We will continue to train our intelligent ML model to safely roll out this new Windows version in phases to deliver a smooth update experience."

For the second half of February, we have some surprise games, some not-so-surprise games, Perks, and a DLC—plenty to get you gaming now and to prime your pre-install buttons! Whether you boot up Bluey: The Videogame to play with the family, jump into Madden NFL 24 to try and recreate the big game how you would have played it, or just want to play Maneater to see what it'd be like to be an absolute menace as a shark, we have you covered. Let's get to the games!

Available Today:
Return to Grace (Cloud, Console, and PC)
A daring space archaeologist has just unearthed the ancient resting place of a long lost A.I. god known as Grace. Adventure with various fractured A.I. personalities as you uncover the great mystery of why she was shut down all those years ago in this first-person narrative adventure set in a visually stunning '60s retro sci-fi world.

AMD's first generation XDNA-based Neural Processing Unit (NPU) arrived last year, as an onboard aspect of their "Phoenix" Ryzen 7040 mobile processor series, followed many months later by Intel's similarly NPU-laden Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" generation. It was recently revealed that a Windows 11 DirectML preview grants preliminary support for Core Ultra NPUs—Microsoft's software engineering department seems to be prioritizing Intel AI tech. Team Red has already released XDNA on desktop platforms—with its Ryzen 8000G APU family—and the "Hawk Point" 8040 series is nearing a retail launch, but these processors (plus 7040) remain unsupported by Microsoft's DirectML API. An interesting AMD community blog entry was posted two weeks—news outlets have been slow to pick up on its relevance.

Intel NPU activity can be monitored in Windows Task Manager (see screenshot below), and an upcoming update will add competing AMD parts to the mix. Joel Hruska's Team Red community blog post reveals that NPU monitoring for Ryzen 8040 series processors is due soon: " As AI PCs become more popular, there's a growing need for system monitoring tools that can track the performance of the new NPUs (Neural Processing Units) available on select Ryzen 8040 Series mobile processors. A neural processing unit - also sometimes referred to an integrated or on-die AI engine -- can improve battery life by offloading AI tasks that would otherwise be performed on the CPU or GPU. AMD has been working with Microsoft to enable MCDM (Microsoft Compute Driver Model) infrastructure on the AMD NPU (Neural Processing Unit)-enabled Ryzen 8040 Series of mobile processors. MCDM is a derivative of Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) that is targeting non-GPU, compute devices, such as the NPU. MCDM enables NPUs to make use of the existing GPU device management infrastructure, including scheduling, power management, memory management, and performance debugging with tools such as the Task Manager. MCDM serves as a fundamental layer, ensuring the smooth execution of AI workloads on NPU devices."

Yesterday, during a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast, we shared an update on plans to continue to bring more games to more people around the world, with the exciting news that the first Activision Blizzard game on Xbox Game Pass will be Diablo IV, beginning March 28. Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Matt Booty also shared the vision on game exclusivity, the future of Xbox hardware, and the overall Xbox promise. There's a lot to talk about, so we encourage you to watch the full episode (see below).

With the combined creativity across Team Xbox, players can expect an incredible 2024 with the likes of Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, Ara: History Untold, Towerborne and more coming your way, alongside continued updates for our blockbuster franchises Call of Duty, Minecraft, Forza, The Elder Scrolls Online and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

A Windows 11 Insider build for the upcoming "24H2" release of Windows exposes a new graphics setting called "automatic super resolution," or ASR as Microsoft intends to call it. Its caption reads "use AI to make supported games play more smoothly with enhanced details." The toggle is designed to work not just with games, but also Windows UWP apps. PhantomOfEarth reports that the feature is Microsoft's own super resolution model that's different from DLSS, FSR, or XeSS. It is exposed as a feature on machines with an NPU or AI accelerator compatible with Microsoft's APIs. Apparently, the upscaler component of ASR leverages AI to reconstruct details. Since the caption reads "supported games," ASR may not work universally. It remains to be seen how its image quality compares to that of DLSS, FSR, or XeSS.

Besides games, ASR is being designed to mainly enhance the quality of video captured by webcams for collaboration apps such as Teams, Skype, and Camera—all three of which are UWP apps. Windows 11 23H2 already leverages AI on PCs with NPUs to offer several webcam filters, background manipulation, audio noise filtering, and other enhancements. ASR would attempt to enhance the resolutions. 720p remains the mainstream webcam resolution, with some premium notebooks integrating 1080p.

As many of you know, two weeks ago, there were a series of changes made to the Overwatch team, as well as other teams across Blizzard. Writing a public blog is difficult in the wake of these events. I want to express gratitude for the absolutely amazing people who worked on our game that are no longer on our team. I want the community to feel informed, and I want to convey our excitement about what is to come in Season 9. To be honest, it's a lot to balance—but one of the things we've been most proud of is how we've kept lines of communication open between the team and our community, and we intend to continue that.

In that spirit, yesterday, we shared the exciting changes you are going to experience with Competitive starting in Season 9. I'd like to give a bit more insight into why we are making these changes. In our previous Director's Take, we talked about improving the game's core PvP experience. There are different ways that we look at improving the game, but one of the biggest is listening to your feedback. Season 9 starts in less than a week, and the two biggest and best changes coming to the season and a lot of it is driven by feedback from you - our players along with our team's vision to make the game more fun and challenging for everyone.

Chad Pralle, Principle Technical Program Manager at Microsoft's Windows AI NPU division has introduced the DirectML 1.13.1 and ONNX Runtime 1.17 APIs—this appears to be a collaborative effort—Samsung was roped in to some degree, according to Microsoft's announcement and a recent Team Blue blog entry. Pralle and his team are suitably proud of this joint effort that involved open source models: "we are excited to announce developer preview support for NPU acceleration in DirectML, the machine learning platform API for Windows. This developer preview enables support for a subset of models on new Windows 11 devices with Intel Core Ultra processors with Intel AI boost."

Further on in Microsoft's introductory piece, Samsung Electronics is announced as a key launch partner—Hwang-Yoon Shim, VP and Head of New Computing H/W R&D Group stated that: "NPUs are emerging as a critical resource for broadly delivering efficient machine learning experiences to users, and Windows DirectML is one of the most efficient ways for Samsung's developers to make those experiences for Windows." Microsoft notes that NPU support in DirectML is still "a work in progress," but Pralle and his colleagues are eager to receive user feedback from the testing community. It is currently "only compatible with a subset of machine learning models, some models may not run at all or may have high latency or low accuracy." They hope to implement improvements in the near future. The release is limited to modern Team Blue hardware, so NPU-onboard AMD devices are excluded at this point in time, naturally.

This week in its earnings call, Samsung announced that its foundry business has received a significant order for a two nanometer AI chips, marking a major win for its advanced fabrication technology. The unnamed customer has contracted Samsung to produce AI accelerators using its upcoming 2 nm process node, which promises significant gains in performance and efficiency over today's leading-edge chips. Along with the AI chips, the deal includes supporting HBM and advanced packaging - indicating a large-scale and complex project. Industry sources speculate the order may be from a major hyperscaler like Google, Microsoft, or Alibaba, who are aggressively expanding their AI capabilities. Competition for AI chip contracts has heated up as the field becomes crucial for data centers, autonomous vehicles, and other emerging applications. Samsung said demand recovery in 2023 across smartphones, PCs and enterprise hardware will fuel growth for its broader foundry business. It's forging ahead with 3 nm production while eyeing 2 nm for launch around 2025.

Compared to its 3 nm process, 2 nm aims to increase power efficiency by 25% and boost performance by 12% while reducing chip area by 5%. The new order provides validation for Samsung's billion-dollar investments in next-generation manufacturing. It also bolsters Samsung's position against Taiwan-based TSMC, which holds a large portion of the foundry market share. TSMC landed Apple as its first 2 nm customer, while Intel announced 5G infrastructure chip orders from Ericsson and Faraday Technology using its "Intel 18A" node. With rivals securing major customers, Samsung is aggressively pricing 2 nm to attract clients. Reports indicate Qualcomm may shift some flagship mobile chips to Samsung's foundry at the 2 nm node, so if the yields are good, the node has a great potential to attract customers.