Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed the architecture of the company’s next-generation Lunar Lake client processor for AI PCs during his Computex 2024 keynote. Shrugging off the performance and power consumption claims of competitors, he emphasized Intel’s determination to strengthen its leadership position in the AI PC space.
Designed to accelerate the growth of the AI PC category, Lunar Lake promises up to 40% lower system-on-chip (SoC) power and more than three times the AI compute power of its predecessor. It features new Performance-cores (P-cores) and Efficient-cores (E-cores), a fourth-generation Intel neural processing unit (NPU) with up to 48 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of AI performance, and an all-new GPU design code-named Battlemage.
By combining Xe2 GPU cores for graphics and Xe Matrix Extension (XMX) arrays for AI, Battlemage improves gaming and graphics performance by 1.5x over the previous generation and enables a second AI accelerator with up to 67 TOPS of performance. With the CPU AI acceleration included, Lunar Lake delivers up to 120 TOPS compared to just 45 for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and 50 TOPS for AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series processors.
In a clear dig at Qualcomm, Gelsinger pointed out that while others prepare to enter the AI PC market, Intel is already shipping at scale, delivering over 8 million AI PC processors during the first quarter of this year, which is more than all other competitors together. He went on to add that Lunar Lake is set to power more than 80 different AI PC designs from 20 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) while Intel expects to ship more than 40 million Core Ultra processors this year.
Gelsinger also briefly mentioned that the Arrow Lake desktop processor is on schedule for the second half of this year and he expects to be able to unveil Panther Lake at Computex 2025.
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