Microsoft’s new AI hub highlights apps that support NPUs – Computerworld

The NPU is an ancillary chip to a computer’s CPU and GPU, and is more power efficient when running generative AI (genAI)-based tasks such as image recognition, content creation, and voice transcription.

“The NPU’s ability to offload these tasks from the CPU and GPU allows for faster, more efficient operation of the entire system,” Microsoft said.

Microsoft introduced Copilot+ PCs last year with NPUs to run genAI tools. The software maker mandated that Copilot+ PCs include NPUs and that the collective system performance reach 40+ TOPS (trillion operations per second). The first handful of Copilot+ PCs included chips from Qualcomm and Intel, but the NPUs went largely unutilized.