This years Computex, a leading tech show in Taipeh (Taiwan), has been dominated by one clear topic: AI. Anyone has now heard of ChatGPT but this simple to use AI chat bot might just be the start. Looking at the offerings from the PC industry one might realize that this wave is going to hit earlier than expected.
A new era of the PC: AI PCs
The future of the PC will be an ultimate AI PC that acts a copilot to everything you do on it. This at least is the vision of the coming year that many tech companies believe in. Acer for example unveiled their latest laptops boasting built-in AI capabilities. These AI PCs promise to revolutionize how we work by anticipating user needs and learning from past behavior to improve work flow, efficiency and our interactions with PCs. AI assistants could manage background tasks, adjust settings for better battery life or even predict what files you’ll need next.
Combine this with features like Microsofts Recall and we are getting increasingly close to the future of the personal computer that is so personal it might as well be a human inside you device.
Powering this AI future
Chipmakers like Intel and AMD are also unveiling next-generation processors specifically designed for AI applications. After Qualcomm Snapdragon took on the PC world the non-ARM manufacturers now need to compete with the new Player. These new processors come with significant performance boosts and maybe even more important improved power efficiency gains. Apart from the CPU and GPU performance the NPU, the neural processing unit, is getting increasing attention. These processors are optimized for AI models and act as AI accelerators for locally running models rather than cloud computing.
Back to the Real World
The AI hype is undeniable and with an increasingly inflating AI bubble the question remains how many of all these buzz words are actually here to stay and revolutionize the way we interact with devices and the world. The theoretical possibilities are seemingly endless.
Computex 2024 paints a clear picture: AI is no longer science fiction and here to stay to fundamentally the importance of technology and our interaction with it. In the end, time will show how much of this enormous AI wave is going to reach the shore.
