“AI PC” is undoubtedly one of the hottest concepts at present.
Since the beginning of this year, chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD, system manufacturers such as Microsoft and Apple, and OEM manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, HP, and Asus have all launched related AI services and regard AI PCs as the next explosion point for industry growth.
Driven by all parties, the scale of the AIPC market is growing. According to Canalys data, global AI PC shipments reached 8.8 million units in the second quarter of 2024, accounting for 14% of total PC shipments. It is expected that global AI PC shipments will reach 44 million units and 105 million units in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Previously, Canalys also predicted that China’s AI PC market will explode from 2024, reaching 33 million units in 2028, accounting for 73% of the total shipments, becoming the mainstream of the PC market.
CNMO noticed that the rapid development of AI PC is not only actively responding to traditional PC brands, but also “cross-border” brands such as Huawei and Honor are actively planning. For example, on September 6, Honor officially released its first AI PC built on the Snapdragon X Elite platform, the Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon Edition, at the 2024 Berlin Consumer Electronics Show (IFA) in Germany. It can be seen that the PC industry is indeed setting off an AI boom.
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At present, the industry has not formed a clear and unified definition of what AI PC is and how it is different from previous PCs. With the release of the Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon Edition, this question has been answered. As a new AI PC jointly created by Honor and Qualcomm, it aims to provide users with high-performance devices with innovative AI experience. The product is built with users in mind, emphasizing providing users with a user experience that is different from traditional PCs.
For example, the Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon version retains its stylish and slim design, while relying on the better energy consumption performance of Snapdragon X Elite and the Honor OS Turbo intelligent power consumption scheduling, it can achieve all-day off-battery endurance. Even in high-load heavy office scenarios such as running multiple large documents, office software or video conferencing for a long time, it can provide users with off-battery endurance performance that is better than traditional thin and light notebooks.
Of course, it is not just about battery life improvement. As an AI PC, its feature is that it provides a number of groundbreaking new functions and new modes. Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon Edition supports Magic AI interconnected office. YOYO conference can realize AI two-way noise reduction, AI meeting minutes, screen projection privacy protection and other functions, bringing a convenient and intelligent meeting experience. In the office scene, YOYO assistant can provide intelligent search, knowledge Q&A, intelligent recommendation and other functions to make daily office more AI and more efficient.
In addition, Honor has also brought the advantages of mobile phones to PC products, such as application optimization. Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon Edition also achieved a smooth transition from the traditional X86 application ecosystem to the Windows on Arm ecosystem. Based on years of research on the ecosystem, Honor’s application hotspot library uses platform-level AI to intelligently identify and translate users’ common scenarios, shortening the application startup time by an average of 16%. At present, Honor has optimized 16 popular applications in six categories, including browsers, online meetings, media, office, social software and tools.
The reason why Honor MagicBook Art 14 can optimize the user experience with the power of AI is that it is equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite platform designed for AI PCs, and its integrated new Hexagon NPU has a computing power of up to 45TOPS. The ultra-high NPU computing power means that it can process a large amount of data in a very short time, providing an excellent AI computing level, thereby supporting powerful terminal-side AI, achieving seamless multitasking and a new user experience.
Not only that, as Qualcomm’s first Windows PC platform based on 4nm process, Snapdragon X Elite uses Qualcomm Oryon CPU, which has built-in intelligent branch predictor and power management scheduler, making multi-tasking and multi-threading operation efficient. Excellent energy efficiency, LPDDR5 memory and high-speed solid-state drive allow Honor MagicBook Art 14 Snapdragon Edition to handle complex scenes and large applications with ease.
Honor has joined forces with Qualcomm to redefine the software and hardware of PC products through AI, making the PC truly user-centric, adapting, tailoring and serving users’ daily usage scenarios, and continuously improving usage and production efficiency, enhancing the user experience whether it is for daily entertainment or office use.
Snapdragon chips are the key to AI PC development
In the past six months, the AI PC industry has become the focus of the technology industry, but what is more important about the emergence of AIPC is the driving force behind it, especially Qualcomm, which re-entered the market in 2024.
The launch of the Snapdragon X Elite chip in 2023 has attracted market attention. The product has achieved lower power consumption with the same performance, and the NPU with AI computing power of 45 TOPS has solved the “worries” for the popularization of AIPC products. This also makes Intel, AMD and Apple focus on strengthening the performance of their products on NPU after the Snapdragon X Elite.
However, while other companies are focusing on optimizing NPU performance, Qualcomm has already built an AI PC chip matrix. After releasing the Snapdragon X Elite chip last year, it has launched new products, the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core and 10-core versions, for the AI PC market this year. The Snapdragon X series product portfolio not only has a powerful NPU, but also uses a customized Oryon CPU, which gives it excellent performance. In addition, Qualcomm has also optimized energy consumption, allowing it to have better battery life at the same performance, especially when it is off-powered, it can still maintain efficient performance output. This gives many OEM manufacturers more room for chip selection based on different product positioning.
However, how to use AIPC to open up a larger business space is the ultimate problem faced by major OEM manufacturers and chip manufacturers. According to the degree of technological breakthrough, it is estimated that there will not be much difference between the companies in AIPC hardware at present, and the main competition point in the future will return to the point-to-point application scenario.
As for the innovation of application scenarios for AI PC, it is necessary to invest in daily life scenarios and directly meet the needs of consumer groups. In this regard, Snapdragon still has an advantage because it has a more open mind. In particular, its close cooperation with smartphone manufacturers not only helps them build AI PCs with excellent performance, but also expands its business areas and strengthens the seamless interconnection experience of different categories of terminals by building a new Windows 11 AI+ PC.
Therefore, looking at the development of the PC market in the past six months, the emergence of AI technology has indeed driven the industry forward. Currently, chip manufacturers have invested a lot of resources to improve NPU performance to meet the needs of AI computing. But obviously, Qualcomm has occupied a key position in the AI PC era by relying on its forward-looking strategic vision, quickly adapting and optimizing its own products, and strengthening the layout of PC chips.
In conclusion: Overall, the AIPC industry is still in its early stages of explosion and requires joint efforts from upstream and downstream to truly open up new growth space for PCs. Among them, companies like Qualcomm that have created highly competitive products and effectively promoted industry scenario-based innovation are more likely to take off on the cusp of AI PCs.
