• Microsoft is getting ready to fully unveil its vision for “AI PCs” next month at an event in Seattle.
  • Microsoft internally describes devices running Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processor as “next-generation AI Copilot PCs”, unlike the latest chip technology from both AMD and Intel.
  • Microsoft will be the first to launch the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for customers, which are expected to be unveiled at a special Surface event next month.

Microsoft is getting ready to fully unveil its vision for “AI PCs” next month at an event in Seattle. Microsoft is confident that the new round of Arm-based Windows laptops will beat Apple’s M3 MacBook Air in CPU performance and AI-accelerated tasks.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop processor

After years of waiting for Qualcomm to deliver on its performance promises, Microsoft has reportedly upped its bet on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processor and believes that Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processor will meet the performance they expect to better drive the Windows on ARM platform.

Microsoft is confident that the new Qualcomm chips will debut this year in several Windows laptops as well as Microsoft’s latest consumer-facing Surface hardware. Microsoft also plans to show off the chips in a series of demos that show they are faster than the M3 MacBook Air for CPU tasks, AI acceleration, and application emulation.

According to people familiar with the matter, Rosetta 2 is an application compatibility layer used by Apple on its Mac computers with Apple silicon to convert applications compiled for 64-bit Intel processors to Apple’s processors. Microsoft said in internal documents that these new Windows AI PCs will be faster than Apple’s Rosetta 2 in terms of application emulation speed.

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Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 models

We expect to see the Surface Pro 10 and Laptop 6 for customers, as well as plenty of AI features in Windows 11, which has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor built in, rather than an Intel Core Ultra chip.

Microsoft describes devices running Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processors as “next-gen AI Copilot PCs” internally, meant to differentiate them from existing PCs that run on AMD’s latest chips or even Intel’s Core Ultra processors.

This new class of PCs will get access to new AI-powered Windows features first, including an AI Explorer app that lets you “retrieve anything you’ve ever seen or done on your device.”

Apart from Microsoft, Qualcomm is also confident in its new processors, offering hands-on opportunities to the media recently with the Snapdragon X Elite chips. Qualcomm has shown benchmarks that beat Apple’s M2 processor in many areas and Intel’s latest Core Ultra 7 chips.

Microsoft’s big AI PC launch will take place on 20 May, just a day before the company’s annual Build developer conference.