All new PCs will soon be “AI PCs,” whether they have Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm hardware inside. And as the era of AI PCs comes upon us, a whole new language of technical terms has also popped up.
Here’s a helpful guide to all the AI-related tech terms you need to know. Whether you’re reading a PC manufacturer’s spec sheet or news coverage about the latest AI hardware developments, everything here is essential knowledge to grasp going forward.
An AI PC is a PC that can run AI tasks. Yes, that means nearly any PC can technically be an AI PC. As a result, this term is somewhat squishy, hard to pin down, and needlessly confusing.
Manufacturers often use “AI PC” to refer to a PC with an NPU (neural processing unit), which is a hardware component that’s optimized for running AI tasks in a low-power way. However, a powerful GPU (graphics processing unit) is still the fastest way to run …