Nvidia made big strides on Sunday as it announced several new products and services for artificial intelligence (AI) innovations for desktop computers. It introduced its RTX AI Toolkit for developers to build apps and experiences on its platform, and also provided a technology demo for Project G-Assist, an AI assistant with gaming knowledge. The company also teased the “RTX AI PC” moniker for upcoming gaming laptops from Asus and MSI, noting that it will bring Microsoft's PC Copilot+ features to those devices.
Nvidia's push for RTX AI PCs
In a blog post, Nvidia stated: “The recently announced RTX AI laptops from ASUS and MSI feature GeForce RTX 4070 GPUs and efficient systems-on-a-chip with Windows 11 PC AI capabilities. These AI PCs with Windows 11 will receive a free upgrade to PC Copilot+ experiences when they become available.While the company did not detail what constitutes an RTX AI PC, it did highlight several AI accelerations that will enable its laptop GPU platforms that will be launched throughout the year.
It also claimed that these laptops will get Microsoft's PC Copilot+ features via a free update “when available.” The write-up suggests that gaming laptops won't get features like Recall and Cocreate at launch, but could be updated later. Also, according to a report by The Verge, these laptops will run on AMD's latest Strix CPUs.
This distinction is fitting given that Microsoft announced its partnership with Snapdragon for its Arm-based chipsets with much fanfare during its Build event. For some time, the company is likely to keep these features exclusive to Snapdragon chipsets that run AI tasks using built-in Neural Processing Units (NPUs).
During the announcements, Nvidia also emphasized that GPUs are better suited for running heavier AI workloads compared to NPUs. The comparison is likely based on information shared by Microsoft that its internal NPUs can handle 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS). In comparison, Nvidia GPUs are said to handle up to 1,000 TOPS. A disadvantage of GPUs, however, is that they consume more power, while NPUs are optimized for performance.
Asus and MSI gaming laptops are expected to be available in July as RTX AI PCs, but it's unclear when they'll be upgraded to the Copilot+ PC category.
