Samsung Electronics today unveiled the Galaxy Book4 Edge, the next-generation of AI PCs. With 45 TOPS NPU AI computing performance and cutting-edge hybrid AI integrations, the Galaxy Book4 Edge amplifies the PC experience and offers the most hyperconnected mobile AI ecosystem yet. Together, Samsung and leading industry partners are propelling AI innovation and unleashing a next-generation AI PC with the Galaxy Book4 Edge.

"The Galaxy Book4 Edge expands our vision of AI connectivity—bridging the gap between mobile and PC, while democratizing AI experiences that change the way we operate each and every day," said TM Roh, President and Head of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics. "This next-generation AI PC unlocks new levels of computing performance, made possible by our proven Samsung Galaxy interface and open collaboration with industry leaders to bring our users world-class hardware and software solutions."

Today, Lenovo launched the Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 designed for professionals who need top-notch performance in a portable 14-inch chassis. Featuring a stunning 16:10 display, this mobile workstation is powered by AMD Ryzen PRO 8040 HS-Series processors. These processors are ultra-advanced and energy-efficient, making them perfect for use in thin and light mobile workstations. The AMD Ryzen PRO HS- Series processors also come with built-in Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities, including an integrated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for optimized performance in AI workflows.

The Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 is provided with independent software vendor (ISV) certifications and integrated AMD Radeon graphics, making it ideal for running applications like AutoCAD, Revit, and SOLIDWORKS with seamless performance. This mobile workstation is ideal for mobile power users, offering advanced ThinkShield security features and passes comprehensive MIL-SPEC testing for ultimate durability.

Personal computers (PCs) have been used as the major productivity device for several decades. But now we are entering a new era of PCs based on artificial intelligence (AI), thanks to the boom witnessed in generative AI (GenAI). We believe the inventory correction and demand weakness in the global PC market have already normalized, with the impacts from COVID-19 largely being factored in. All this has created a comparatively healthy backdrop for reshaping the PC industry. Counterpoint estimates that almost half a billion AI laptop PCs will be sold during the 2023-2027 period, with AI PCs reviving the replacement demand.

Counterpoint separates GenAI laptop PCs into three categories - AI basic laptop, AI-advanced laptop and AI-capable laptop - based on different levels of computational performance, corresponding use cases and the efficiency of computational performance. We believe AI basic laptops, which are already in the market, can perform basic AI tasks but not completely GenAI tasks and, starting this year, will be supplanted by more AI-advanced and AI-capable models with enough TOPS (tera operations per second) powered by NPU (neural processing unit) or GPU (graphics processing unit) to perform the advanced GenAI tasks really well.

MSI, the global AI PC leading brand, is launching a two-month-long member event starting in May. MSI will roll out a series of activities exclusively to reward program members, including a lucky draw for game codes by referring friends to become new MSI members, chances to complete surveys and win desired prizes, unlocking various tasks for corresponding rewards, and more.

Successfully referring a friend to register as an MSI member will earn you one lottery ticket for game codes. Each person has a maximum of five chances per month. There will be 100 winners drawn each month, totaling 200 winners. The winner list will be announced on June 17, 2024, and July 15, 2024, respectively. Select your most desired MSI products, complete the survey questionnaire, and submit. Upon receiving a successful submission confirmation email, you are qualified for the draw. Winners will be announced on July 15, 2024."

According to the report from BenchLife, NVIDIA has started the marketing campaign push for "Premium AI PC," squarely aimed at the industry's latest trend pushed by Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm for an "AI PC" system, which features a dedicated NPU for processing smaller models locally. NVIDIA's approach comes from a different point of view: every PC with an RTX GPU is a "Premium AI PC," which holds a lot of truth. Generally, GPUs (regardless of the manufacturer) hold more computing potential than the CPU and NPU combined. With NVIDIA's push to include Tensor cores in its GPUs, the company is preparing for next-generation software from vendors and OS providers that will harness the power of these powerful silicon pieces and embed more functionality in the PC.

At the Computex event in Taiwan, there should be more details about Premium AI PCs and general AI PCs. In its marketing materials, NVIDIA compares AI PCs to its Premium AI PCs, which have enhanced capabilities across various applications like image/video editing and upscaling, productivity, gaming, and developer applications. Another relevant selling point is the user base for these Premium AI PCs, which NVIDIA touts to be 100 million users. Those PCs support over 500 AI applications out of the box, highlighting the importance of proper software support. NVIDIA's systems are usually more powerful, with GeForce RTX GPUs reaching anywhere from 100-1300+ TOPS, compared to 40 TOPS of AI PCs. How other AI PC makers plan to fight in the AI PC era remains to be seen, but there is a high chance that this will be the spotlight of the upcoming Computex show.

Today, Intel announced it surpassed 500 AI models running optimized on new Intel Core Ultra processors - the industry's premier AI PC processor available in the market today, featuring new AI experiences, immersive graphics and optimal battery life. This significant milestone is a result of Intel's investment in client AI, the AI PC transformation, framework optimizations and AI tools including OpenVINO toolkit. The 500 models, which can be deployed across the central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU) and neural processing unit (NPU), are available across popular industry sources, including OpenVINO Model Zoo, Hugging Face, ONNX Model Zoo and PyTorch. The models draw from categories of local AI inferencing, including large language, diffusion, super resolution, object detection, image classification/segmentation, computer vision and others.

"Intel has a rich history of working with the ecosystem to bring AI applications to client devices, and today we celebrate another strong chapter in the heritage of client AI by surpassing 500 pre-trained AI models running optimized on Intel Core Ultra processors. This unmatched selection reflects our commitment to building not only the PC industry's most robust toolchain for AI developers, but a rock-solid foundation AI software users can implicitly trust."
-Robert Hallock, Intel vice president and general manager of AI and technical marketing in the Client Computing Group

Intel Corporation today reported first-quarter 2024 financial results. "We are making steady progress against our priorities and delivered a solid quarter," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "Strong innovation across our client, edge and data center portfolios drove double-digit revenue growth in Intel Products. With Intel 3 in high-volume production, leading-edge semiconductors are being manufactured in the U.S. for the first time in almost a decade and we are on track to regain process leadership next year as we grow Intel Foundry. We are confident in our plans to drive sequential growth throughout the year as we accelerate our AI solutions and maintain our relentless focus on execution, operational discipline and shareholder value creation in a dynamic market."

"Q1 revenue was in line with our expectations, and we delivered non-GAAP EPS above our guidance, driven by better-than-expected gross margins and strong expense discipline," said David Zinsner, Intel CFO. "Our new foundry operating model, which provides greater transparency and accountability, is already driving better decision-making across the business. Looking ahead, we expect to deliver year-over-year revenue and non-GAAP EPS growth in fiscal year 2024, including roughly 200 basis points of full-year gross margin improvement." In the first quarter, the company used $1.2 billion in cash from operations and paid dividends of $0.5 billion.

Global PC shipments grew around 3% YoY in Q1 2024 after eight consecutive quarters of declines due to demand slowdown and inventory correction, according to the latest data from Counterpoint Research. The shipment growth in Q1 2024 came on a relatively low base in Q1 2023. The coming quarters of 2024 will see sequential shipment growth, resulting in 3% YoY growth for the full year, largely driven by AI PC momentum, shipment recovery across different sectors, and a fresh replacement cycle.

Lenovo's PC shipments were up 8% in Q1 2024 off an easy comparison from last year. The brand managed to reclaim its 24% share in the market, compared to 23% in Q1 2023. HP and Dell, with market shares of 21% and 16% respectively, remained flattish, waiting for North America to drive shipment growth in the coming quarters. Apple's shipment performance was also resilient, with the 2% growth mainly supported by M3 base models.

Today, AMD announced new products that will expand its commercial mobile and desktop AI PC portfolio, delivering exceptional productivity and premium AI and connectivity experiences to business users. The new AMD Ryzen PRO 8040 Series are the most advanced x86 processors built for business laptops and mobile workstations. In addition, AMD also announced the AMD Ryzen PRO 8000 Series desktop processor, the first AI enabled desktop processor for business users, engineered to deliver cutting-edge performance with low power consumption.

With AMD Ryzen AI built into select models, AMD is further extending its AI PC leadership. By leveraging the CPU, GPU, and dedicated on-chip neural processing unit (NPU), new Ryzen AI-powered processors provide more dedicated AI processing power than previous generations, with up to 16 dedicated NPU TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second) and up to 39 total system TOPS. Commercial PCs equipped with new Ryzen AI-enabled processors will help transform user experience, offering next-gen performance for AI-enabled collaboration, content creation, and data and analytics workloads. With the addition of AMD PRO technologies, IT managers can unlock enterprise-grade manageability features to simplify IT operations and complete PC deployment faster across the organization, built-in security features for chip-to-cloud defense from sophisticated attacks, as well as unprecedented stability, reliability and platform longevity for enterprise software.

Lenovo has unveiled a selection of ThinkCentre desktops powered by AMD Ryzen PRO 8000 Series desktop processors with up to 16 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of integrated NPU capability dedicated to process AI workloads, including the performance focused ThinkCentre M75t Gen 5, the flexible ThinkCentre M75s Gen 5, and the compact ThinkCentre M75q Gen 5. Designed to meet the diverse needs of modern business, the ThinkCentre M75 Gen 5 family of desktops harnesses the AI capability of its component while optimizing its energy efficiency to deliver impressive results.

"The AI PC era is already here and at Lenovo we are embracing it to unlock new possibilities," said Sanjeev Menon, vice president and general manager, Worldwide Desktop Business in Intelligent Devices Group, Lenovo. "The need for businesses to integrate AI into their operations continues to grow and our ThinkCentre M75 family of desktops, with a strong and stable power supply, the ability to upgrade components when needed, and the space to expand memory and optimize thermal management are the ideal options to enhance productivity with AI without heavy investments. Lenovo and AMD have a long-standing partnership focused on delivering value to our customers and we know users will be delighted by the leap in performance of our new desktops."

While everyone has been focused on shipping an AI-enhanced product recently, one tech giant didn't appear to be bothered- Apple. However, according to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, Apple is readying an overhaul of its Apple Silicon M-series chips to embed AI processing capabilities at the processor level. As the report indicates, Apple is preparing an update for late 2024 and early 2025 with the M4 series of chips, which will reportedly feature AI processing units similar to those found in other commercial chips. There should be three levels of the M4 series, with the entry-level M4 codenamed Donan, the mid-level M4 chip codenamed Brava, and the high-end M4 chip codenamed Hydra.

Sales of Apple Macs peaked in 2022; the following year was a sharp decline, and sales have continued to be flat since. The new AI PCs for Windows-based systems have been generating hype from all major vendors, hoping to introduce AI features to end users. However, Apple wants to be part of the revolution, and the company has already scheduled the World Wide Developer Conference for June 10th. At WWDC this year, Apple is supposed to show a suite of AI-powered solutions to enable better user experience and increase productivity. With M4 chips getting AI enhancement, the WWDC announcements will get extra hardware accelerations. However, we must wait for the exact announcements before making further assumptions.

After two years of decline, the worldwide traditional PC market returned to growth during the first quarter of 2024 (1Q24) with 59.8 million shipments, growing 1.5% year over year, according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Growth was largely achieved due to easy year-over-year comparisons as the market declined 28.7% during the first quarter of 2023, which was the lowest point in PC history. In addition, global PC shipments finally returned to pre-pandemic levels as 1Q24 volumes rivaled those seen in 1Q19 when 60.5 million units were shipped.

With inflation numbers trending down, PC shipments have begun to recover in most regions, leading to growth in the Americas as well as Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). However, the deflationary pressures in China directly impacted the global PC market. As the largest consumer of desktop PCs, weak demand in China led to yet another quarter of declines for global desktop shipments, which already faced pressure from notebooks as the preferred form factor.

At the Intel Vision 2024 customer and partner conference, Intel introduced the Intel Gaudi 3 accelerator to bring performance, openness and choice to enterprise generative AI (GenAI), and unveiled a suite of new open scalable systems, next-gen products and strategic collaborations to accelerate GenAI adoption. With only 10% of enterprises successfully moving GenAI projects into production last year, Intel's latest offerings address the challenges businesses face in scaling AI initiatives.

"Innovation is advancing at an unprecedented pace, all enabled by silicon - and every company is quickly becoming an AI company," said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. "Intel is bringing AI everywhere across the enterprise, from the PC to the data center to the edge. Our latest Gaudi, Xeon and Core Ultra platforms are delivering a cohesive set of flexible solutions tailored to meet the changing needs of our customers and partners and capitalize on the immense opportunities ahead."

Ryan McCurdy, President of Lenovo North America, revealed ambitious forward-thinking product roadmap during an interview with CRN magazine. A hybrid strategic approach will create an anticipated AI fast lane on future hardware—McCurdy, a former Intel veteran, stated: "there will be a steady stream of product development to add (AI PC) hardware capabilities in a chicken-and-egg scenario for the OS and for the (independent software vendor) community to develop their latest AI capabilities on top of that hardware...So we are really paving the AI autobahn from a hardware perspective so that we can get the AI software cars to go faster on them." Lenovo—as expected—is jumping on the AI-on-device train, but it will be diversifying its range of AI server systems with new AMD and Intel-powered options. The company has reacted to recent Team Green AI GPU supply issues—alternative units are now in the picture: "with NVIDIA, I think there's obviously lead times associated with it, and there's some end customer identification, to make sure that the products are going to certain identified end customers. As we showcased at Tech World with NVIDIA on stage, AMD on stage, Intel on stage and Microsoft on stage, those industry partnerships are critical to not only how we operate on a tactical supply chain question but also on a strategic what's our value proposition."

McCurdy did not go into detail about upcoming Intel-based server equipment, but seemed excited about AMD's Instinct MI300X accelerator—Lenovo was (previously) announced as one of the early OEM takers of Team Red's latest CDNA 3.0 tech. CRN asked about the firm's outlook for upcoming MI300X-based inventory—McCurdy responded with: "I won't comment on an unreleased product, but the partnership I think illustrates the larger point, which is the industry is looking for a broad array of options. Obviously, when you have any sort of lead times, especially six-month, nine-month and 12-month lead times, there is interest in this incredible technology to be more broadly available. I think you could say in a very generic sense, demand is as high as we've ever seen for the product. And then it comes down to getting the infrastructure launched, getting testing done, and getting workloads validated, and all that work is underway. So I think there is a very hungry end customer-partner user base when it comes to alternatives and a more broad, diverse set of solutions."

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a leading brand in gaming PC components, gaming laptops, and Hi-fi audio products, proudly presents the CVN B650M GAMING FROZEN motherboard. This motherboard is our first AMD AM5 motherboard that supports the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series and the latest AMD Ryzen 8000 Series processors that feature the groundbreaking AMD Ryzen AI technology as well as support for AVX-512.

The CVN B650M GAMING FROZEN supports the latest AMD Ryzen 8000G Series APUs with AMD Ryzen AI technology. It also supports the AMD Ryzen 7000 and AMD Ryzen 7000 X3D Series processors with 3D V-Cache Technology, as well as support for the future AM5 processors. AMD Ryzen AI brings the power of personal computing closer to you on an AI PC, unlocking a whole new level of efficiencies for work, collaboration, and innovation so that you can stay connected better with the world around you.

Microsoft, Intel, and AMD are attempting to jumpstart demand in the PC industry again, under the aegis of the AI PC—devices with native acceleration for AI workloads. Both Intel and AMD have mobile processors with on-silicon NPUs (neural processing units), which are designed to accelerate the first wave of AI-enhanced client experiences on Windows 11 23H2. Microsoft's bulwark with democratizing AI has been Copilot, as a licensee of Open AI GPT-4, GPT-4 Turbo, Dali, and other generative AI tools from the Open AI stable. Copilot is currently Microsoft's most heavily invested application, with its most capital and best minds mobilized to making it the most popular AI assistant. Microsoft even pushed for the AI PC designator to PC OEMs, which requires them to have a dedicated Copilot key akin to the Start key (we'll see how anti-competition regulators deal with that).

The problem with Microsoft's tango with Intel and AMD to push AI PCs, is that Copilot doesn't really use an NPU, not even at the edge—you input a query or a prompt, and Copilot hands it over to a cloud-based AI service. This is about to change, with Microsoft announcing that Copilot will be able to run locally on AI PCs. Microsoft identified several kinds of Copilot use-cases that an NPU can handle on-device, which should speed up response times to Copilot queries, but this requires the NPU to have at least 40 TOPS of performance. This is a problem for the current crop of processors with NPUs. Intel's Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" has an AI Boost NPU with 10 TOPS on tap, while the Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" is only slightly faster, with a 16 TOPS Ryzen AI NPU. AMD has already revealed that the XDNA 2-based 2nd Generation Ryzen AI NPU in its upcoming "Strix Point" processors will come with over 40 TOPS of performance, and it stands to reason that the NPUs in Intel's "Arrow Lake" or "Lunar Lake" processors are comparable in performance; which should enable on-device Copilot.

Intel Corporation today announced the creation of two new artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives as part of the AI PC Acceleration Program: the AI PC Developer Program and the addition of independent hardware vendors to the program. These are critical milestones in Intel's pursuit of enabling the software and hardware ecosystem to optimize and maximize AI on more than 100 million Intel-based AI PCs through 2025.

"We have made great strides with our AI PC Acceleration Program by working with the ecosystem. Today, with the addition of the AI PC Developer Program, we are expanding our reach to go beyond large ISVs and engage with small- and medium-sized players and aspiring developers. Our goal is to drive a frictionless experience by offering a broad set of tools including the new AI-ready Developer Kit," said Carla Rodriguez, Intel vice president and general manager of Client Software Ecosystem Enabling.

Google has just released an Arm-optimized version of its popular Chrome browser for Windows PCs. This new version is designed to take full advantage of Arm-based devices' hardware and operating system, promising users a faster and smoother browsing experience. The Arm-optimized Chrome for Windows has been developed in close collaboration with Qualcomm, ensuring that Chrome users get the best possible experience on current Arm-compatible PCs. Hiroshi Lockheimer, Senior Vice President at Google, stated, "We've designed Chrome browser to be fast, secure, and easy to use across desktops and mobile devices, and we're always looking for ways to bring this experience to more people." Early testers of the Arm-optimized Chrome have reported significant performance improvements compared to the x86-emulated version. The new browser is rolling out starting today and will be available on existing Arm devices, including PCs powered by Snapdragon 8cx, 8c, and 7c processors.

Shortly, Chrome will receive an even more performant chip boost with Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon X Elite SoC launch. Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm, expressed his excitement about the collaboration, saying, "As we enter the era of the AI PC, we can't wait to see Chrome shine by taking advantage of the powerful Snapdragon X Elite system." Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite devices are expected to hit the market in mid-2024 with "dramatic performance improvement in the Speedometer 2.0 benchmark" on reference hardware. Being one of the most essential applications, getting a native Chrome build to run on Windows-on-Arm is a significant step for the platform, promising more investment from software makers.

InnoGrit's low-wattage 12 nanometer IG5666 controller popped up on the T-FORCE GE PRO PCIe 5.0 SSD series earlier in the year, but attention has turned to another consumer-grade design. Parent company—Yingren Technology—is not well known outside of China, although its InnoGrit brand has started to make inroads within Western markets. The enterprise-level YRS900 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller was announced last September—this open-source RISC-V-based solution was designed/engineered to "align with U.S. export restrictions." According to cnBeta and MyDrivers reports, a new YRS820 controller has successfully reached the mass production phase. This is a PCIe 5.0 consumer-grade controller, likely derived from its big sibling (YRS900).

According to InnoGrit presentation material, their new model is based on: "RISC-V instruction architecture, adopts a 4-channel PCIe 5.0 interface, is equipped with 8 NAND flash memory channels, supports NVMe 2.0 protocol, has an interface transmission rate of 2667MT/s, can be paired with 3D TLC/QLC, and supports a maximum capacity of up to 8 TB." Company representatives stated that the YRS820 controller is destined to be fitted on high-end consumer parts—the AI PC market segment is a key goal, since the YRS820 is able to: "accelerate data processing for specific applications and have high stability, consistency and security." cnBeta highlighted some anticipated performance figures: "YRS820 achieves sequential read 14 GB/s, sequential write 12 GB/s, random read and random write up to 2000K IOPs and 1500K IOPs respectively." InnoGrit did not reveal a release timetable, since their latest consumer-grade controller is going through a validation process. The company is currently collaborating with domestic NAND flash memory and DRAM manufacturers, as well as other industry bodies.

Dr. Lisa Su introduced AMD's "next-gen AMD Ryzen" processor series during a recent presentation at the Beijing AI PC Innovation Summit—this announcement confirms that Team Red's RDNA 3+ (AKA 3.5) graphics technology is destined to arrive (on board) with the launch of "Strix Point" processors. Product roadmaps remain unchanged—when compared to slides from last December—AMD still anticipates a 2024 launch window. China has been introduced to current-gen "Hawk Point" Ryzen 8040 mobile and 8000G (AM5) desktop processors—key AMD personnel presented a variety of products, including region-specific budget options.

David Wang, SVP of GPU Technology and Engineering R&D, covered the RDNA 3+ and XDNA 2 architectures (very briefly) during his on-stage appearance—he dedicated most of his attention to current-gen "Hawk Point" processors. The Strix Point integrated solution—a GFX1150 target—has been linked to "RDNA 3.5" for a while, a lot of this information was gleaned from publicly visible AMD patch notices. The latest Team Red software engineering activities indicate that Zen 5 CPU enablement is nearing a possible finish line.

AMD's Beijing AI PC Innovation Summit served as introduction point for a Chinese market launch of "Hawk Point" Ryzen 8040 mobile series and 8000G desktop processors—news coverage has, so far, focused on that rollout as well as a teasing of next-gen "Strix Point" processors. HXL/9550pro has put a spotlight on an easy-to-miss presentation slide—their social media post revealed the existence of new budget-friendly Ryzen 8000F CPUs. Team Red seems to be preparing two China-exclusive SKUs: Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400F—not many details were revealed on-stage, so reporters have played a guessing game with speculated technical information. Industry experts believe that the 8700F is an iGPU-less version of AMD's "Hawk Point" Ryzen 7 8700G APU—utilizing the same 8 core and 16 thread configuration, but missing the Radeon 780M integrated graphics solution.

The lower-end SKU is a more perplexing product, since AMD did not elaborate much during "budget" product unveilings—VideoCardz put its thinking hat on for this one: "meanwhile, the 8400F might be harder to guess, as the name sits between 8500G and 8300G, both featuring vastly different configurations. An educated guess would be 6 cores and 12 threads, possibly with two Zen 4 and four Zen 4c cores." The "F" model suffix gained attention last year—courtesy of Team Red's Ryzen 5 7500F CPU. This iGPU-less "Raphael" Zen 4 SKU was initially released as a Chinese market exclusive, but eventually headed West as an option for system integrators.

We are excited to announce the first Surface AI PCs built exclusively for business: Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business. These new PCs represent a major step forward in customer-focused design and are packed with features that business customers have been requesting - from amazing performance and battery life to more ports, better security and custom, durable anti-reflective displays. These are the first Surface PCs optimized for AI, with the new Copilot key being added to Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro keyboards that accelerate access to the best Windows AI experiences. In addition to the new Surface for Business products, we are pleased to announce the Microsoft Adaptive Accessories will now be available to commercial customers.

These new PCs are powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra processors. We partnered with Intel to deliver the power and reliable performance our customers depend on, along with compelling AI experiences for Surface and the Windows ecosystem. Surface has also been leading in Neural Processing Unit (NPU) integration to drive AI experiences on the PC since 2019, and the benefits of these connected efforts are evident. From a performance perspective, Surface Laptop 6 is 2x faster than Laptop 52, and Surface Pro 10 is up to 53% faster than Pro 9. The benefits of the NPU integration include AI features like Windows Studio Effects and Live Captions and the opportunity for businesses and developers to build their own AI apps and experiences.

2024 will be the year generative AI gets personal, the CEOs of NVIDIA and HP said today in a fireside chat, unveiling new laptops that can build, test and run large language models. "This is a renaissance of the personal computer," said NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang at HP Amplify, a gathering in Las Vegas of about 1,500 resellers and distributors. "The work of creators, designers and data scientists is going to be revolutionized by these new workstations."

Greater Speed and Security
"AI is the biggest thing to come to the PC in decades," said HP's Enrique Lores, in the runup to the announcement of what his company billed as "the industry's largest portfolio of AI PCs and workstations." Compared to running their AI work in the cloud, the new systems will provide increased speed and security while reducing costs and energy, Lores said in a keynote at the event. New HP ZBooks provide a portfolio of mobile AI workstations powered by a full range of NVIDIA RTX Ada Generation GPUs. Entry-level systems with the NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU let users run generative AI apps and tools wherever they go. High-end models pack the RTX 5000 to deliver up to 682 TOPS, so they can create and run LLMs locally, using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to connect to their content for results that are both personalized and private.

AMD has caught up with NVIDIA and Intel in the race to get a locally run AI chatbot up and running on its respective hardware. Team Red's community hub welcomed a new blog entry on Wednesday—AI staffers published a handy "How to run a Large Language Model (LLM) on your AMD Ryzen AI PC or Radeon Graphics Card" step-by-step guide. They recommend that interested parties are best served by downloading the correct version of LM Studio. Their CPU-bound Windows variant—designed for higher-end Phoenix and Hawk Point chips—compatible Ryzen AI PCs can deploy instances of a GPT based LLM-powered AI chatbot. The LM Studio ROCm technical preview functions similarly, but is reliant on Radeon RX 7000 graphics card ownership. Supported GPU targets include: gfx1100, gfx1101 and gfx1102.

AMD believes that: "AI assistants are quickly becoming essential resources to help increase productivity, efficiency or even brainstorm for ideas." Their blog also puts a spotlight on LM Studio's offline functionality: "Not only does the local AI chatbot on your machine not require an internet connection—but your conversations stay on your local machine." The six-step guide invites curious members to experiment with a handful of large language models—most notably Mistral 7b and LLAMA v2 7b. They thoroughly recommend that you select options with "Q4 K M" (AKA 4-bit quantization). You can learn about spooling up "your very own AI chatbot" here.

The results are in for the iF DESIGN AWARD 2024! This year, MSI takes the award home with its MAG 341CQP QD-OLED curved gaming monitor and MAG CORELIQUID E series liquid cooler in Gaming/VR/AR category. "MSI is honored to be recognized by the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD. As a world-leading gaming & AI PC brand, MSI has been dedicating great efforts in product designs. We believe that design could impact the globe, and will continue to bring the latest and greatest designs to users," said Sam Chern, MSI Marketing Vice President.

Equipped with Quantum Dot technology and a next-gen OLED panel, the MAG 341CQP QD-OLED features a 3440x1440 UWQHD, 175 Hz refresh rate, ultra-fast 0.03 ms (GtG) response time, catering players a smooth and seamless gaming experience. Better yet, the monitor panel is VESA-certified ClearMR 9000 and DisplayHDR TrueBlack 400, promising vibrant colors and mitigates motion blur. By utilizing a dynamically engineered layer of Quantum Dot technology, it could create 99.3% coverage of DCI-P3 color space. Moreover, the MSI OLED Care 2.0 solution offers a range of screen protection optimization mechanisms and significantly reduce the chances of OLED burn-in.