The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the personal computer (PC) industry, with tech giants like Apple and NVIDIA already dominating the creative and gaming sectors. This shift leaves significant room for growth in the enterprise and developer markets, as highlighted in a recent report by Omdia.
According to Omdia’s study, “AI PCs: An Emerging Device Class,” there are two primary methods for integrating AI inference capabilities into PCs. The first leverages a traditional PC setup augmented with a high-performance GPU, while the second employs a smartphone-like system-on-chip with built-in AI acceleration. Notably, some manufacturers have taken the lead by incorporating NVIDIA’s robust GPUs since 2019. Meanwhile, Apple has carved out its niche with the introduction of Apple Silicon MacBooks.
The original vision for the PC was to offer a personal experience, and to better understand this, Omdia researchers developed various user personas. Among these, the “Corporate Warrior” stands out.
This persona represents business professionals who rely heavily on collaboration tools and travel extensively. Currently underserved by the market’s leading forces, this group is now the focus of Intel’s Core Ultra CPUs as the company strives to reclaim its position in the AI arena. However, systems based on Arm technology, like those from Apple, hold a distinct advantage due to their unified memory architecture.
Omdia’s Principal Analyst for Advanced Computing, Alexander Harrowell, emphasizes the critical role of unified memory in AI’s success on PCs. The ability to run complex AI models is constrained by VRAM, with the most sought-after 7B parameter AI models, such as Mistral-7B, requiring a minimum of 8GB.
Moreover, performance is tightly linked to memory bandwidth. Arm’s longstanding commitment to unified memory, dating back to the 1980s, provides it with a significant edge in the evolving AI landscape.
As AI continues to advance, the PC industry is poised for transformation, with enterprise and developer segments emerging as key battlegrounds for new technology adoption.