Microsoft announced new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro tablets featuring Qualcomm chips designed for advanced AI capabilities without quickly draining battery life. These devices can perform AI tasks offline and will be available in June, starting at $999, with pre-orders starting immediately.
Other manufacturers like Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus, Acer, and Samsung are also launching AI-ready PCs with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus processors. These new PCs will support Microsoft’s Copilot AI chatbot and offer extended battery life. PCs with AMD and Intel chips adhering to the Copilot+ standard will be available later.
The new AI features include translating audio, recommending message responses, and suggesting settings changes, all running locally on the device to ensure privacy and offline functionality.
This news follows Microsoft’s announcement last month that artificial intelligence will be at the core of every PC by 2024. Microsoft has tasked this mini-army of devices with improving Windows PCs that use Qualcomm’s energy-efficient Arm-based chips — devices the software maker aims for in hopes they can continue to compete with Apple’s Arm-based Notebooks. Adoption for the Windows platform has been an issue, performance and compatibility in particular, of Arm-based Windows machines, but these new devices could be cool for their improved AI chops and better battery life.
Microsoft slipped 1.2% to $425.34 and Qualcomm rose 2% to $197.76, notching a record closing high.
Featured image: Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella speaks during the Microsoft May 20 Briefing event at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, on May 20, 2024. Credit: Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
