Microsoft is confident in Windows on ARM, will hold an AI PC reveal on May 20

Microsoft will reportedly hold an event in Seattle on May 20 to detail its vision for its "AI PCs". The event will be on the day before Microsoft's Build Developer Conference kicks off. CEO Satya Nadella will discuss the company's "AI vision across hardware and software", TheVerge reports.

Citing sources familiar with Microsoft's plans, the report states that Microsoft is confident its new ARM-powered Windows laptops beat Apple's M3-powered MacBook Air in CPU performance and AI-accelerated tasks.

Microsoft is reportedly banking heavily on Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon X Elite ARM-based chipset and is planning a number of demos, showing them beat Apple's M3 MacBook in CPU tasks and AI acceleration, and even app performance.

That last bit is key here - app emulation (where an x64-based app is translated into ARM) hasn't been impressive, but now Microsoft reportedly believes Windows AI PCs will have better emulation than Apple's Rosetta 2. Rosetta 2 was quite impressive when Apple's M1 came out.

So what are these AI PCs? That's the name of the ARM-based laptops that will come out in the second half of this year. Microsoft already unveiled its Intel Core Ultra and AMD-powered Surface Pro 10, but the report says it will also offer the Surface Pro 10 with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processors.

These AI-powered machines will have exclusive access to AI Explorer - an app that lets you “retrieve anything you’ve ever seen or done on your device.” It's designed to work as a timeline you can summon on your PC, and uses an on-device NPU (Neural Processing Unit) to scan through a timeline of events.

There will also be an AI-powered video streaming feature, and AI PCs will have access to the Windows Studio Effects for background blur, the ability to create images with AI models for free, and the option to allow Copilot to access your PC data for context and to improve prompts.

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