Qualcomm introduces AI-powered PC laptop chip for 2024, shaping the future of AI PCs

On Tuesday, Qualcomm provided details about a chip designed for Microsoft's Windows-based laptops. The company claimed that this chip, called Snapdragon Elite X, would outperform Apple's Mac computer chips in certain tasks. The redesigned Snapdragon Elite X chip, set to be available in laptops in the coming year, is optimized for handling artificial intelligence (AI) tasks, including tasks such as email summarization, text generation, and image creation. These AI capabilities will also be integrated into Qualcomm's smartphone chips, with Google and Meta planning to leverage them.

This news came after rumors surfaced that Microsoft had pushed chip companies like Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, and Qualcomm to create new chips that could handle a variety of AI functions in Windows, the most popular PC operating system worldwide.

During a video presentation at Qualcomm's event, Microsoft's Chief Executive, Satya Nadella, emphasized that these chips would pave the way for a new era of "AI PCs" for both businesses and consumers. He expressed the transformative potential of the collaboration and the innovation it would bring to system architecture.

Notably, Qualcomm is poised to be the first to enter the market with a chip that directly competes with Apple's custom-designed chips. Apple's chips have significantly increased their market share since their introduction in 2020.

Qualcomm asserted that the Snapdragon Elite X surpasses Apple's M2 Max chip in performance for specific tasks while being more energy-efficient than both Apple and Intel PC chips. The most significant feature of the new chip is its ability to handle artificial intelligence models with 13 billion parameters. This is a crucial measure of AI system sophistication, especially in tasks that involve generating text or images.

As per Francis Sideco, an analyst at TIRIAS Research, there is a growing demand for laptops equipped with AI capabilities, driven by the availability of applications such as Adobe, which allow users to utilize AI for generating images in various contexts, from real estate marketing materials to product labels. Small businesses and individual designers and creators are increasingly reliant on these capabilities, making AI-integrated laptops a valuable tool.

As the demand for AI-enabled devices grows, Qualcomm's release of the Snapdragon Elite X CPU promises to usher in a new era of "AI PCs" and represents a significant advancement in the development of laptop chips with AI capabilities.