The great NPU failure: Two years later, local AI is still all about GPUs

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Local AI tools are more powerful than ever, but most of the magic ain't happening on NPUs--much to Microsoft's disappointment, I'm sure. For the last few years, the term "AI PC" has basically meant little more than "a lightweight portable laptop with a neural processing unit (NPU) ." Today, two years after the glitzy launch of NPUs with Intel's Meteor Lake hardware, these AI PCs still feel like glorified tech demos. But local AI is here!