PCs: The Future of AI Inference in the Gaming and Enterprise Market

PCs are set to become a major player in the AI market, with Apple and NVIDIA leading the way for creative and gaming users. However, new technologies announced by Intel and others see the volume enterprise market and developer space as the main opportunities for growth.

According to a new report from Omdia, there are two main technology options for delivering AI inference on PCs: a traditional PC architecture enhanced with a high-performance GPU, or a smartphone-style system-on-chip with dedicated AI acceleration. Some PC manufacturers have already started shipping powerful NVIDIA GPUs since 2019, while Apple has defined the second option with its Apple Silicon MacBooks.

To understand the different needs and performance requirements of users, Omdia researchers developed various user personas. The “Corporate Warrior” persona represents business users who heavily rely on collaboration tools and travel frequently. This persona is currently underserved by the dominant players in the market, but Intel’s Core Ultra CPUs are targeting this persona to break back into the AI space. Arm-based systems like Apple’s have an advantage with unified memory, which is crucial for AI on PCs.

Unified memory impacts the type of AI models that can be run and the performance level. Arm’s investment in its unified memory architecture since the 1980s gives it a significant edge in this space. The Omdia report covers technology, user personas, major silicon vendors, and PC OEMs and is available in Omdia’s Advanced Computing Intelligence Service.

Omdia is a technology research and advisory group within Informa Tech that provides actionable insights for organizations to make smart growth decisions. For more information about their services or products please contact Fasiha Khan at [email protected].