Intel says it is shipped ‘barely north’ of 100 million AI PCs, which equates to roughly 4 ‘ZOPS’, or ‘Zetta OPS’ of AI processing energy

Here is a subject everyone knows and love: AI PCs. The customarily nebulous time period refers primarily to PCs with devoted NPUs constructed to carry out native AI computing, which I do know we within the PC gaming group are all very enthusiastic about.

Ah, sufficient snark. It is definitely represented a significant change in the way in which the tech trade promotes new programs, and due to NPUs cropping up in lots of the newest chips, the variety of AI PCs has risen dramatically. In keeping with Intel fellow Tom Peterson, its figures are actually ‘barely north’ of 100 million.

“We’ve shipped 100 million [AI PCs] already” mentioned Petersen, at an Intel briefing I attended earlier at the moment. “We have been doing this now for a few years, began off with Meteor Lake, and now Lunar Lake. Does anybody know what our put in base of TOPS [Trillions of Operations Per Second] is?”

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Clean faces, no guesses. Petersen continued: “Our put in base of TOPS ought to now not be known as TOPS. It is what I will name a ZOP. We’ve 4 ZOPS of set up base, which is a Zetta OP, which is a trillion, million operations, or a billion TOPS.”

As to the query of what number of of these AI PCs (and all these ZOPS) are getting used for AI processing, Intel is not positive. Petersen made it clear that the tech large would not acquire knowledge on precisely how its chips are used, though had this to say on the topic:

“I do suppose that is the crucial query… you have acquired all these ZOPS on the market, are they helpful but? Initially, the floating level items inside PCs had been dormant for many years, after which sooner or later, they had been simply at all times there.

“And for me, the set off is Microsoft,” Petersen continued. “So as soon as Microsoft Copilot+ turns into extra helpful and extra ubiquitous, based mostly on the NPU and the GPU, that is certainly one of these helpful choices.”

Intel has definitely taken the “construct it and they’re going to come” strategy to NPUs, though because it stands in 2026, it is tough to see why your common person would purchase a PC based mostly on its native AI processing capabilities. Dell has just lately mentioned that buyers are ‘not shopping for based mostly on AI’, and I would say that 100 million+ AI PC determine is probably going extra reflective of Intel’s large chip market share, relatively than a large demand for client AI {hardware}.

Intel CPUs flip up in plenty of PCs, and PCs nonetheless promote in large numbers, AI be damned. Anyway, I will be going to mattress this night pondering of ZOPS. I’ve by no means favored the TOPS acronym, however stick a Z in entrance of it? Now we’re speaking.