Microsoft has been preparing the release of new AI features for Windows 11 for quite some time now, and it appears at least one of those features will be hardware restricted.
Beta testers have already gotten their hands on these new AI features that are expected to be officially unveiled at the Microsoft event scheduled to take place on May 20. At the event, Microsoft is expected to unveil how AI will be integrated into Windows 11 and new Arm-powered Surface hardware. One of these beta testers has taken to X to share the requirements for a feature called “AI Explorer,” which turns everything you do on your computer into a searchable memory through the use of natural language.
AI Explorer will be able to navigate to conversations you have had with people across various applications, locate documents, specific web pages, images, files, and even have the capabilities of understanding context and tasks that are on-screen. @thebookisclosed posted a screenshot of the requirements for AI Explorer, which appear to be an ARM64 CPU, 16GB RAM, 225GB storage, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite NPU. If these requirements are correct, AI Explorer appears to be exclusive to ARM-based PCs, cutting out any AI PCs built with AMD and Intel NPUs.
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Windows Central took a stab at why Microsoft has decided to go this route, with the publication stating it’s likely the ARM64 CPU is required due to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X platform outputs 45 TOPS (trillions of operations per second), with AMD’s being around 16 TOPS, and Intel’s 10 TOPS.
It should be noted that these system requirements can be changed before the update is pushed out to the wider public. However, if they don’t change it will be a major blow to Intel and AMD.