Local AI and NPU integration in Windows PCs

The integration of local Artificial Intelligence (AI) into Windows PCs is increasing, utilizing CPUs, GPUs, and specialized Neural Processing Units (NPUs) to handle tasks directly on the device. A primary advantage of local AI is enhanced data privacy, as sensitive information such as personal documents and photos does not necessarily need to be transmitted to external cloud servers for processing.

Intel has introduced the NPU into desktop processors with the Core Ultra 200S series. For example, the Core Ultra 9 285K features two Neural Compute Engine tiles capable of reaching 13 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second). While the NPU is designed for energy-efficient inference and offloading smaller workloads to keep the CPU and GPU free, its performance remains lower than the requirements set by Microsoft for Copilot+ PCs, which demand NPU performance exceeding 40 TOPS.