While we impatiently await the arrival of Microsoft’s next announcements concerning the arrival of AI in Windows, a recent rumor risks casting a chill over users. Indeed, it seems that all these features are ultimately reserved for certain PCs. We’ll explain it to you.
For a little over a year, Microsoft – like much of the tech sector – has been betting everything on AI. Its own solution, Copilot, is already available almost everywhere within Windows. But this is just an appetizer. On May 20, the Redmond firm will unveil its plans for artificial intelligence within Windows. Among them, we will find in particular an improved file explorer.
According to previous rumors, it will indeed be able to find and classify files according to user requests. The promise is tempting… but probably inaccessible for many users. Indeed, leaker Albacore has revealed the minimum configuration required to run the beast. According to him, you will absolutely need an ARM64 processor to take advantage of it.
On the same subject — Windows 11: File Explorer finally improves its address bar, here’s how to activate it
No AI in Windows in ARM processor
If the rest of the recommendations are relatively correct (16 GB of RAM and 225 GB of storage), Albacore makes it clear that you will need a machine equipped with a Snapdragon X Elite NPU. As a reminder, the NPU is a processor specifically designed for tasks requiring artificial intelligence. The choice of Snapdragon X Elite is not trivial.
The Qualcomm chip displays performance of 45 TOPS, compared to 16 TOPS for its equivalent from AMD and 10 from Intel. It is not really surprising to see Microsoft favor this one to the detriment of these competitors. The fact remains that this choice will exclude many users from the next big new features of Windows.
If one could expect that the AI functionalities would require an ARM PC to function, the market is still far from having broken through to the general public. Microsoft is therefore taking the gamble that in the future, the IT equipment will be entirely turned to the ARM architecture. Only the future will prove him right or wrong.
Turns out Windows 11 build 26100 (ported 24H2 RTM) contains the AI Explorer requirements 📃 baked into the OS
💠ARM64 CPU
💠 16GiB of RAM
💠 225GiB system drive (total, not free space)
💠 Snapdragon X Elite NPU (HWID QCOM0D0A)
I guess that’s one way to drive ARM64 adoption 😶🌫️ pic.twitter.com/ZbQf4KY1BN— Albacore ☁️ (@thebookisclosed) April 18, 2024