Qualcomm is no longer the only game in town for Copilot Plus PCs

Microsoft is finally ready to share some of what made its latest Surface hardware special.

Announced on the eve of this year's IFA conference in Berlin, the tech titan’s AI-powered Copilot Plus PC initiative is set to expand to include more than just a handful of ARM-based machines. Going forward, it will now encompass devices running on Intel's new Core Ultra processors. 

In addition to becoming part of the Copilot Plus PC family, those who pickup a new Intel-powered PC will gain access to the same AI apps that launched alongside Microsoft's opening salvo of Copilot Plus PCs earlier this year. 

Intel's new silicon represents the first party outside Qualcomm that Microsoft has allowed into the programme. In short, buying a Copilot Plus PC no longer means buying one that runs on ARM. 

Microsoft’s corporate vice president for devices Pavan Davuluri framed the move as the latest in a long running partnership built on innovation and dedication between the two companies. 

“Together, we turned the vision of a PC on every desk into a reality. Evolving from bulky desktops to sleek portable ultrabooks with lightning fast WiFi,” he said.

While it's very easy to embrace skepticism and see Microsoft’s pivot into Copilot Plus PCs effort as an exercise in branding more-so than benefits, it is worth noting that these new Lunar Lake processors do offer NPU performance of up to 48 TOPS compared to the 40 TOPS seen in the most recent Surface Laptop. 

That’s nice to see, though a few extra trillions per second doesn’t exactly translate into tangible benefits beyond speed improvements for on-device AI applications.

"With higher TOPS, consumers can expect quicker processing times for complex AI tasks, leading to a smoother and more seamless user experience,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Reviews.org earlier this year.

Microsoft’s Copilot Plus AI experiences (such as Cocreator) will roll out to systems running on Intel’s Lunar Lake processors from November via a free update.