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Copilot+ PC device on stage at the Microsoft BUILD conference in May 2024

 


CODE Presents: My New Copilot+ PC

by Mike Yeager

I first saw the Copilot+ PC device on stage at the Microsoft BUILD conference in May 2024, during a demonstration of how its NPU could dramatically speed up AI tasks running locally, and ever since, I'd wanted one. I was lucky to get one of the few Qualcomm Windows on Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kits before they halted production. Although Qualcomm-powered ARM Copilot+ PC laptops have been shipping since mid-June, my Dev Kit didn't arrive until mid-October, about three months later, and I was eager to see what I could do with its Hexagon NPU. Here's how it's going…

Windows on ARM

Thus far, as far as a new computer goes, I'm absolutely thrilled. The Dev Kit immediately became my main computer, and I won't look back. The VPN I use (OpenVPN) as well as a couple of other programs are not yet available natively for Windows on ARM yet, but they install and run absolutely fine under x64 emulation, and you wouldn't know they're x64 apps unless you peek in Task Manager. It does everything my Intel computers do, and I've not had a single issue with it or any software running on it. It boots almost instantly, it's blazing fast, cool, and quiet. I can even run Visual Studio in a Teams meeting without everything slowing to a crawl, something I was never quite able to accomplish on Intel.

I'd been toying with the idea of getting an ARM machine as my next computer for a couple of years. I knew that Windows for ARM64 with its impressive emulation of x86 and x64 had been around for a few years and rumors were that it was getting quite stable. I also knew that there were native ARM64 versions of Visual Studio 2022 and VS Code and that the Office applications were being converted to native ARM64. Any bits of Office that aren't yet converted run in emulation and communication between the two platforms are handled automatically. This hybrid technology is called ARM64EC and is available to all C++ application developers. When Copilot+ PCs were announced, it seemed that the momentum was there to make Windows on ARM mainstream. The only complaints I'd heard while waiting for my machine to arrive were that a lot of games and some other software, (e.g., third-party VPNs) don't run on them yet and won't until the vendors build native ARM64 versions. I'm not a gamer, but friends with their own ARM Copilot+ PCs tell me the gaming experience isn't bad. Plus, I still have my i7 laptop to use if I ever need it. So far, I haven't.

Copilot+ PC Features

As announced at BUILD, Microsoft is planning on adding an AI stack to the Windows OS, both for ARM and Intel. In https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai/npu-devices/#how-to-access-the-npu-on-a-copilot-pc, Microsoft lists “Unique AI features supported by Copilot+ PCs with an NPU” announced at the conference, which are meant to be a starting point for capabilities to be built into Windows:

  • Windows Studio Effects: A set of audio and video NPU-accelerated AI effects from Microsoft including Creative Filter, Background Blur, Eye Contact, Auto Framing, Voice Focus. Developers can also add toggles to their app for system-level controls.

  • Recall: The AI-supported UserActivity API that enables users to search for past interactions using natural language and pick up where they left off.

  • Phi Silica: The Phi Small Language Model (SLM) that enables your app to connect with the on-device model to perform natural language processing tasks (chat, math, code, reasoning) using an upcoming release of the Windows App SDK.

  • Text Recognition: The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) API that enables the extraction of text from images and documents.

  • Cocreator with Paint: A new feature in Microsoft Paint that transforms images into AI Art.

  • Super Resolution: An industry-leading AI technology that uses the NPU to make games run faster and look better.

I was eager to dive in. Because the Dev Kit computer isn't a laptop, I plugged in an HD web cam I'd been using on a Linux machine sitting on my desk. The camera doesn't support IR, so I can't use it for Windows Hello and, it turns out, I can't use it for Windows Studio Effects either. It's unclear…

… this article is continued online. Click here to continue.

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