By Anuj Bhatia
Artificial intelligence (AI) and its implementation across industries dominated HP’s annual Amplify partner conference that started in Las Vegas on Wednesday. The two-day conference featured announcements ranging from partnership program enhancements to its new commercial device lineup.
“We believe there is an opportunity to create personalised experiences with AI. We can drive tools that will increase productivity. We can create collaborative solutions that will increase flexibility,” said HP president and CEO Enrique Lores, who made it clear that HP will bank on ‘AI PCs’ by putting artificial intelligence at the centre of the PC experience.
PC vendors like HP are jumping on the AI hype to boost sales of their computers after a difficult stretch of time. International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts global PCs shipments to grow 2.0 per cent in 2024, led by the launch of AI PCs and the start of a commercial refresh cycle.
Lores said that the company’s first AI PCs will arrive in the summer. Although he didn’t share details, Lores did mention that HP’s next generation of PCs will have advanced AI capabilities, including the ability to run large language models (LLMs) locally. According to Lores, the key benefits of AI PCs will be speed, cost and security when it comes to running LLMs and AI models locally instead of in the cloud.
Every tech CEO appeared on stage during Amplify 2024, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, echoing the implementation of AI in core products and across every customer touchpoint, bringing every Silicon Valley bigwig on the same page. Analysts expect 2024 it to be the year of AI when it comes to product pitches.
“The entire tech stack has to be rethought,” Nadella said in a firechat with Lores later, highlighting the broader impact of AI on the tech landscape as a whole. Nadella cited a 1993 speech by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates where he said computers will bring information at our fingertips. “What AI will do is it will put expertise at our fingertips,” said Nadella.
Much of the excitement over generative AI is due to overnight success of the ChatGPT chatbot, which was released by the Microsoft-backed AI firm OpenAI in late 2022. Microsoft is introducing a number of products and services employing GPT-4, including an assistant in Windows 11 and an AI add-on for its Office productivity app subscriptions.
For Pichai, the current advancements in AI represent merely the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of what AI is actually capable of. He foresees AI evolving into an “intelligent sidekick”, infused across the computing experience. “I think AI is going to be the most profound productivity enhancer that we have seen from a technology trend,” he said. Given how rapidly AI is evolving, he said the AI models being released today may seem outdated within just three months.
AI in computers not new
AI inside a PC is not new. In fact, AI has been powering computers for years, but with the launch of large language models and generative AI, PCs will now feature a next-gen neural processing unit (NPU), along with a CPU and GPU, unlocking the ability to run chatbots and generate images or text from a user prompt. Another significant aspect of the AI PC is “on-device AI,” which will allow large language models to effectively become smaller and, consequently, drive more AI applications to be run solely on the device rather than in data centres.
AI capabilities are not just coming to PCs alone. Smartphone firms also see a chance to cash in and are adding AI to phones. Samsung debuted its new line of Galaxy S24 smartphones earlier this year, tapping into mobile AI to bring AI-led features, including on-device translation for both calls and texts, as well as features like Google AI-powered search tools. Apple is expected to put GenAI into its next-generation of iPhones in September, but for now Samsung has a head start towards gaining the upper hand in making the tech more accessible.
But AI is part of a larger shift happening in the tech industry. In fact, there is a silent AI race being fought to control what could be the tech industry’s next big thing — generative AI, the powerful new technology that fuels those chatbots.
Microsoft established an early lead in the AI race through its investment in ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Alphabet’s Google responded with its Gemini chatbot. Meanwhile, chipmakers Nvidia, AMD, Intel and Qualcomm all have processors that will help run the next-gen of AI products. This shift marks the most important technological breakthrough since the inception of social media.
The writer is attending the Amplify 2024 conference in Las Vegas at the invitation of HP India
