Copilot Plus from Microsoft and Qualcomm are entering the PC market with serious advantages. To ensure this, Qualcomm has even provided a development kit that can be purchased.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced a new category of PC: Copilot Plus. These machines not only feature the latest technologies, they also rely on artificial intelligence, with Arm processors to stand out.
Whether with AMD, Intel or Qualcomm, the Copilot Plus is equipped with a particularly powerful NPU (Neural Processing Unit). This component is dedicated to processing tasks related to artificial intelligence. Thanks to it, Copilot Plus can run AI locally, without needing to use remote servers.
But the change doesn’t stop there. Indeed, the Copilot Plus have a dual objective, since some of these PCs embed Arm processors. More specifically, they are equipped with Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips designed by Qualcomm.
This choice is not trivial. Arm processors have several tricks up their sleeve. First of all, they are known for their energy efficiency. They consume less energy than x86 processors (like those from Intel or AMD) for equivalent performance. This translates into better battery life for laptops and reduced power consumption for desktop PCs.
Then, Arm processors are becoming more and more efficient. If they were limited to mobile devices a few years ago, they are now able to compete with the best x86 processors on many tasks. Apple has proven it, they are already at the Apple M4.
Microsoft even announced its translation layer, Prism, to run x86 applications in an Arm environment.
A development kit for Windows
To support the launch of Copilot Plus, Qualcomm has unveiled a Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows. This development kit resembles the Mac Mini kit which was used for Apple Silicon.
The new $899.99 “Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows” houses Qualcomm’s most powerful Snapdragon and plenty of ports, all in roughly the same volume as the Mac Mini.
Ports include three USB 4 ports with Type-C connectors, a pair of USB 3.2 ports with Type-A, Ethernet, 3.5mm audio, and HDMI. What you won’t find here in Qualcomm’s images is the power brick: it contains an external 180W power adapter.
It’s not very interesting: but there you go, it exists and you can pre-order it. It seems more interesting to go for a Surface Laptop.