4 ms·

But like.....what for example. As a normal windows PC user, what kind of software can I run that will benefit from that NPU at all?

KeplerBoy 10mo ago
We don't ask that question. In reality everything is done in the cloud. Maybe they package some camera app that applies snapchat-like filters with NPUs, but that's about the extent of it. Jokes aside: they really seem to do some things like live captions and translations. Pretty sure you could also do these things on the iGPU or CPU at a higher power draw. https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2024/12/18/releasing-real-time-translation-in-live-captions-to-more-copilot-pcs-in-the-dev-channel/ https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2024/12/18/releasi...
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
pjmlp 10mo ago
It is another way Microsoft has tried to cater to OEMs as means to bring PC sales back to the glory exponential growth days, especially under the CoPilot+ PC branding, nowadays still siloed into Windows ARM. In fairness NPUs can use less hardware resources than a general purpose discrete GPU, thus better for laptop workloads, however we all know that if a discrete GPU is available, there is not a technical reason for not using it, assuming enough local memory is available. Ah, and NPUs are yet another thing that GNU/Linux folks would have to reverse engineer as well, as on Windows/Android/Apple OSes they are exposed via OS APIs, and there is yet no industry standard for them.
- vbezhenar 10mo ago
  It's open source: https://github.com/intel/linux-npu-driver https://github.com/intel/linux-npu-driver https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/tree/drivers/accel/ivpu https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux...
  - pjmlp 10mo ago
    That is not an industry standard that works across vendors in an OS and GPU agnostic way, which is why Khronos has started a new standard effort. https://www.khronos.org/events/building-the-foundation-for-accelerated-ai https://www.khronos.org/events/building-the-foundation-for-a...
kakacik 10mo ago
1) tick AI checkbox 2) ??? 3) profit
justin66 10mo ago
They're going to find a way to accelerate the Windows start menu with it.
- gambiting 10mo ago
  God I hope so
- mminer237 10mo ago
  Oh boy, instead of building an efficient index or optimizing the start menu or its built-in web browser, they're adding more power usage to make the computer randomly guess what I want returned since they still can't figure out how to return search results of what you actually typed.
SirMaster 10mo ago
Windows Recall?
undersuit 10mo ago
Try searching for some like "My mouse pointer is too small" https://x.com/rfleury/status/2007964012923994364 https://x.com/rfleury/status/2007964012923994364
- gambiting 10mo ago
  Incredible. 100% typical microsoft though. I'm a "veteran" windows/xbox developer and none of this surprises me.
wmf 10mo ago
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai-features https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai-features https://www.pcworld.com/article/2905178/ai-on-the-notebook-these-tools-already-use-the-new-npu-technology.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/2905178/ai-on-the-notebook-t...
- gambiting 10mo ago
  No for sure, but afaik you get all of those features even if you don't have an NPU. And even if you do have one, it's unclear to me which one of them actually use the NPU for extra power or if they all just run on the CPU. Like the thing that is missing for me is "this is the thing that you can only do on a Copilot PC and it's not available otherwise".

KeplerBoy 10mo ago

We don't ask that question. In reality everything is done in the cloud. Maybe they package some camera app that applies snapchat-like filters with NPUs, but that's about the extent of it. Jokes aside: they really seem to do some things like live captions and translations. Pretty sure you could also do these things on the iGPU or CPU at a higher power draw. https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2024/12/18/releasing-real-time-translation-in-live-captions-to-more-copilot-pcs-in-the-dev-channel/ https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2024/12/18/releasi...

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

pjmlp 10mo ago

It is another way Microsoft has tried to cater to OEMs as means to bring PC sales back to the glory exponential growth days, especially under the CoPilot+ PC branding, nowadays still siloed into Windows ARM. In fairness NPUs can use less hardware resources than a general purpose discrete GPU, thus better for laptop workloads, however we all know that if a discrete GPU is available, there is not a technical reason for not using it, assuming enough local memory is available. Ah, and NPUs are yet another thing that GNU/Linux folks would have to reverse engineer as well, as on Windows/Android/Apple OSes they are exposed via OS APIs, and there is yet no industry standard for them.

vbezhenar 10mo ago
It's open source: https://github.com/intel/linux-npu-driver https://github.com/intel/linux-npu-driver https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/tree/drivers/accel/ivpu https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux...
- pjmlp 10mo ago
  That is not an industry standard that works across vendors in an OS and GPU agnostic way, which is why Khronos has started a new standard effort. https://www.khronos.org/events/building-the-foundation-for-accelerated-ai https://www.khronos.org/events/building-the-foundation-for-a...

kakacik 10mo ago

1) tick AI checkbox 2) ??? 3) profit

justin66 10mo ago

They're going to find a way to accelerate the Windows start menu with it.

gambiting 10mo ago
God I hope so
mminer237 10mo ago
Oh boy, instead of building an efficient index or optimizing the start menu or its built-in web browser, they're adding more power usage to make the computer randomly guess what I want returned since they still can't figure out how to return search results of what you actually typed.

SirMaster 10mo ago

Windows Recall?

undersuit 10mo ago

Try searching for some like "My mouse pointer is too small" https://x.com/rfleury/status/2007964012923994364 https://x.com/rfleury/status/2007964012923994364

gambiting 10mo ago
Incredible. 100% typical microsoft though. I'm a "veteran" windows/xbox developer and none of this surprises me.

wmf 10mo ago

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai-features https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai-features https://www.pcworld.com/article/2905178/ai-on-the-notebook-these-tools-already-use-the-new-npu-technology.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/2905178/ai-on-the-notebook-t...

gambiting 10mo ago
No for sure, but afaik you get all of those features even if you don't have an NPU. And even if you do have one, it's unclear to me which one of them actually use the NPU for extra power or if they all just run on the CPU. Like the thing that is missing for me is "this is the thing that you can only do on a Copilot PC and it's not available otherwise".