Thursday, January 18th 2024
Microsoft Sets 16 GB RAM as Minimum-Requirement for Copilot and Windows AI Features
Microsoft has reportedly set 16 GB as the minimum system requirement for AI PCs, a TrendForce market research report finds. To say that Microsoft has a pivotal role to play in PC hardware specs is an understatement. This year sees the introduction of the first "AI PCs," or PCs with on-device AI acceleration for several new features native to Windows 11 23H2, mainly Microsoft Copilot. From the looks of it, Copilot is receiving the highest corporate attention from Microsoft, as the company looks to integrate the AI chatbot that automates and generates work, into the mainstream PC. In fact, Microsoft is even pushing for a dedicated Copilot button on PC keyboards along the lines of the key that brings up the Start menu. The company's biggest move with Copilot will be the 2024 introduction of Copilot Pro, an AI assistant integrated with Office and 365, which the company plans to sell on a subscription basis alone.
Besides cloud-based acceleration, Microsoft's various AI features will rely on some basic hardware specs for local acceleration. One of them of course is the NPU, with Intel's AI Boost and AMD's Ryzen AI being introduced with their latest mobile processors. The other requirement will be memory. AI acceleration is a highly memory sensitive operation, and LLMs require a sizable amount of fast frequent-access memory. So Microsoft arrived at 16 GB as the bare minimum amount of memory for not just native acceleration, but also cloud-based Copilot AI features to work. This should see the notebooks of 2024 set 16 GB as their baseline memory specs; and for commercial notebooks to scale up to 32 GB or even 64 GB, depending on organizational requirements. The development bodes particularly well for the DRAM industry.
Sources:
TrendForce, TwelveSilverSwords (Reddit)
Besides cloud-based acceleration, Microsoft's various AI features will rely on some basic hardware specs for local acceleration. One of them of course is the NPU, with Intel's AI Boost and AMD's Ryzen AI being introduced with their latest mobile processors. The other requirement will be memory. AI acceleration is a highly memory sensitive operation, and LLMs require a sizable amount of fast frequent-access memory. So Microsoft arrived at 16 GB as the bare minimum amount of memory for not just native acceleration, but also cloud-based Copilot AI features to work. This should see the notebooks of 2024 set 16 GB as their baseline memory specs; and for commercial notebooks to scale up to 32 GB or even 64 GB, depending on organizational requirements. The development bodes particularly well for the DRAM industry.
36 Comments on Microsoft Sets 16 GB RAM as Minimum-Requirement for Copilot and Windows AI Features
Returning to topic, even on windows this will have a multitude of ways to disable because it simply has to, businesses simply won't have any of this shit going through their data. Even the current tools like chatgpt where the inputs are 100% controlled by the user are being blocked and walled of, no way an automated tool will be allowed to run wild on any type of user data.
Speaking of user data, it will be interesting to see how this gets handled in the EU, RGPD is still a thing (often to the point of just being annoying) so no way microsoft can just parse user information willy nilly without risking massive fines.
TLDR this trend is stupid but so is the hysteria claiming this will be farming all your data all times, microsoft likes money and doesn't want to loose all of it to massive fines.What!? No, the guy simply read some disinformation and didn't bother to think it through, it sometimes happens no one is immune to it.
Obviously these morons at MS have no clue what internet speed plans are costing and majority of people get the barebones basic which very slow
No high speed or amount of memory or cpu frequency will ever change AI cloud speed.
So AI bloat will do nothing but slow internet even more.
With 16GB being minimum requirement, it's yet not a guarantee of laptop makers to keep putting the tiniest amounts of RAM possible. Considering the ever increasing RAM demand for other programs and tasks, and DRAM makers/cartel rising the prices... Looks like great news for them.Yeah, MS being Carbon-neutral. Sure... But their products are not. If the user have to add some additional workload for no personal purpose, on top of the tasks one does, this's excess emissions in collosal scale. Considering the wast majority of home users and offices across the globe using MS Windows. This is crypto mining, but now unaviodable and forced upon each individual.
Yeah I keep reading these messages about ms being committed to having a low carbon footprint but how does that apply with windows update always checking for updates on startup probably every 5 +- minutes after plus defender/... if users never stopped manually lol
Just office click to run is a major waste plus edge/... all ms apps are like rattle snakes waiting to strike but a lot of users don't and can't get rid of them and they waste internet bandwidth and system resources anyway and now we have an even less desirable AI nonsense apps coming :kookoo:
There's section in storage to off load unused apps and save space but you'll never see an unused ms app listed :laugh:
except M$ pushing the app active on background 24/7 no matter what