Qualcomm recently announced that its redesigned Snapdragon Elite X chip, optimised for handling AI tasks such as summarising emails, text generation, and image creation, will be available in laptops from next year. 

NVIDIA, which has taken the world by storm with its GPUs, is now discreetly working on designing CPUs compatible with Microsoft’s Windows operating system, utilising technology from Arm Holdings. Similarly, AMD, in collaboration with Arm, plans to make AI chips for PCs.

Meanwhile, Intel has revealed plans to introduce artificial intelligence to contemporary PCs by incorporating a brand-new neural processing unit (NPU) in their 14th-Gen Meteor Lake processors. Microsoft’s latest Surface Laptop Studio 2 is equipped with the latest 13th Gen Intel Core processors, which are part of the Intel Evo platform.

Moreover, it comes with a variety of NVIDIA GPU options, including the RTX 4050, RTX 4060, and RTX 200, giving users a wide range of powerful graphics options to choose from.

Recently, Apple also announced that it’s holding a launch event ‘Scary Fast’ on October 30. It is expected to introduce a new MacBook with an M3 chip. The company is rumoured to be working on its own generative AI models, which would be optimised to run on the M3 chip. 

But, why? 

Looks like everybody is now into making generative AI laptops and better AI chips to support that. Microsoft chief Satya Nadella, during the recent Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, said, “This generation of generative AI has the potential to be, quite frankly, as significant as the mobile revolution or the cloud revolution.”

Nadella believes that Microsoft Copilot will change the way we interact with our PCs. LLMs will usher in a new era of user interface (UI) for PCs, making it easier for users to perform their daily tasks at work. Moreover, Microsoft is planning to bring on edge generative AI capabilities within Microsoft 365.

Running LLMs on local PCs offers various advantages. One significant benefit is the lower latency of responses. Moreover, when LLMs are operated on edge devices, the data doesn’t need to be transmitted to the cloud at all. This not only enhances privacy but also ensures that sensitive data remains stored locally, inaccessible to third parties.

All these developments clearly indicate that the laptops or PCs are not going anywhere anytime soon. However, it can be speculated that AI-capable laptops will act as a transition to spatial computing in the future. Now, Apple also joins the generative AI party with the release of M3 chips in the coming days. 

What about spatial computing? 

While everyone is chasing laptops and busy integrating generative AI capabilities, Apple seems to be ahead of the curve. Its Vision Pro, combined with its next generation silicon capabilities that run MacBook, can be a watershed moment for spatial computing. 

Just as the Mac introduced us to personal computing, and iPhone introduced us to mobile computing, Apple Vision Pro introduces us to spatial computing. 

It uses a custom-designed chip called the R1 chip, designed to handle the complex tasks involved in spatial computing. It is able to process input from 12 cameras, five sensors, and six microphones in real time, and it can stream images to the displays within 12 milliseconds. 

With Vision Pro scheduled to ship early next year, equipped with visionOS, users would be able to effortlessly engage with digital content in their real surroundings using natural inputs like their eyes, hands, and voice. As of today, Apple’s worldwide developer community can even craft a fresh category of spatial computing applications. 

The only competitor to Vision Pro is Meta’ Quest 3. Since its launch videos have been popping up over the internet showing its use cases, people are using it to play games, learn music and much more. To put a strong case for Quest, Mark Zuckererg even appeared in an interview with Lex Fridman in Metaverse using Quest 2. 

Meta’s Quest 3 and the latest Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are both equipped with Qualcomm technology. The Quest 3 is powered by the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, ensuring superior performance and enhanced capabilities. Meanwhile, the Ray-Bans utilise the new Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1, incorporating onboard AI features for advanced user experience.