Qualcomm's exclusivity period on Copilot PCs is winding down. Microsoft confirmed on Tuesday that Intel's new 200V processors and AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series chips will add Copilot AI capabilities beginning in November. Copilot PCs include features like Live Captions (real-time subtitle generation, including translations), Cocreator in Paint (prompt-based image generation), Windows Studio Effects image editing (background blurring, eye contact adjustment and auto-framing) and AI tools in Photos. Of particular interest to gamers is Auto Super Resolution, an Nvidia DLSS competitor that upscales graphical resolution and refresh rates in real time without stunting performance. The AI PCs will also eventually include Recall, Microsoft's searchable timeline of PC activity.

Following the recent launch of the new M3-equipped MacBook Pros, Apple will soon be releasing an update for its Final Cut Pro to make further use of its own silicon. According to the company, its updated video editing suite will leverage a new machine learning model for improved results with object and face tracking. Additionally, H.264 and HEVC encoding will apparently be faster, thanks to enhanced simultaneous processing by Apple silicon's media engines. On the user experience side, the new Final Cut Pro comes with automatic timeline scrolling, as well as the option to simplify a selected group of overlapping connected clips into a single storyline, and the ability to combine connected clips with existing connected storylines. As for Final Cut Pro for iPad, users can take advantage of the new voiceover recording tool, added color-grading presets, new titles, general workflow improvements and stabilization tool in the pro camera mode.

U.S. sanctions are spurring Chinese tech companies to accelerate research to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence without relying on the latest American chips. A Wall Street Journal review of research papers and interviews with employees found that Chinese companies are studying techniques that could allow them to achieve state-of-the-art AI performance with fewer or less powerful semiconductors. They are also researching how to combine different types of chips to avoid relying on any one type of hardware.

American chip innovation is alive and well, as Nvidia's latest lineup showed. For all those who cite Intel Corp.'s troubles as symbolic of the U.S. semiconductor industry's decline, here are two heartening words: Nvidia Corp. On Tuesday, Nvidia -- a red-hot maker of chips for video games, artificial intelligence and cloud computing -- proved again that it is way ahead of its rivals in terms of innovation and performance. The Silicon Valley-based company announced a lineup of three new gaming graphics cards based on its latest "Ampere" chip architecture, saying they will deliver up to double the performance of its prior offerings in the "greatest generational leap" in its history. Prices for the new products range from $499 to $1,499, with two due to come out later this month and the third to be released in October.

Flagship features continue to trickle down from $1,000 phones to their more-affordable brothers, and the same is happening with the chips that power them. Qualcomm unveiled new midrange mobile CPUs today that offer advanced features typically reserved for high-end phones, like AI processing and gaming enhancements. The Snapdragon 730, 730G and 665 are supposed to show up in (presumably cheaper-than-flagship) devices in mid-2019, meaning we may have a slate of budget-friendly handsets to look out for. For the first time, Qualcomm is launching a gaming-specific version of a chipset alongside the regular one. The Snapdragon 730G (G stands for Gaming, get it?)

Efforts to develop fully autonomous self-driving cars have continued to close the gap over the past few years, and now ARM has unveiled its first chip designed specifically for the task. The company's technology already powers many mobile devices, IoT and is in cars today, but this Cortex-A76AE (Automotive Enhanced) chip combines the high power and efficiency we're used to in smartphones with "Split-Lock" tech focus on safety. If one of these chips is processing the code that drives your car, a crash would be disastrous, which is why the DynamIQ multi-core processing we've seen used to boost AI recently is being paired with Split-Lock. Now you have a fast 64-bit processor that can switch between modes, with the "Lock" ability running identical code on two cores for safety and checking, or "Split" where different cores can deal with different tasks. There's even support for an additional CPU core that can act as a "Safety Island" checking the other outputs for redundancy, with the ability to disable some and run in a lower-speed mode if any problems are detected.