Microsoft is ambitious for the success of its new Snapdragon X Elite processor

Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans say the company is confident that its new series of ARM-based Windows laptops will outperform Apple's M3-powered MacBook Air in both CPU performance and AI-accelerated tasks.

Here's What We Know

Microsoft is now betting big on Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processors, which will ship in various Windows laptops this year, as well as in Microsoft's latest Surface consumer hardware. Microsoft is so confident in these new Qualcomm chips that it's planning a series of demonstrations that will show how these processors will be faster than the MacBook Air on the M3 in CPU tasks, AI acceleration, and even app emulation.

Microsoft claims that these new AI-PCs on Windows will have "faster application emulation than Rosetta 2," the application compatibility layer that Apple uses on its Apple Silicon-powered Macs to translate applications compiled for Intel's 64-bit processors to Apple's own processors.

It has also been revealed that the Surface 10 Pro and Surface Laptop 6 devices will feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processor. This processor will not only improve performance and power efficiency, but will also provide Windows with AI-related features through its NPU. This will allow Copilot to access all the context on your computer and provide you with more accurate answers. It will also be possible to create images on the device using custom image models.

Microsoft is calling its new computers "next-gen AI Copilot PCs." Microsoft's Snapdragon X Elite devices will be unveiled on 20 May.

Source: The Verge