500 mn AI laptop PCs to be sold between 2023-27: Counterpoint

NEW DELHI: 500 million artificial intelligence (AI) laptop personal computers (PCs) are expected to be sold during the 2023 to 2027 period, with such PCs reviving the replacement demand in the broader market, according to a Counterpoint Research released Tuesday.

“...we are entering a new era of PCs based on artificial intelligence (AI), thanks to the boom witnessed in generative AI (GenAI). We believe the inventory correction and demand weakness in the global PC market have already normalized, with the impacts from COVID-19 largely being factored in,” the research firm said in its report, adding that these factors have created a comparatively healthy backdrop for “reshaping the PC industry”.

Counterpoint categorises GenAI laptop PCs into three categories: AI basic laptop, AI-advanced laptop and AI-capable laptop, based on different levels of computational performance, corresponding use cases and the efficiency of computational performance.

AI basic laptops, which are already in the market, can perform basic AI tasks but not completely GenAI tasks and, starting this year, will be supplanted by more AI-advanced and AI-capable models with enough TOPS (tera operations per second) powered by NPU (neural processing unit) or GPU (graphics processing unit) to perform the advanced GenAI tasks well, Counterpoint said.

“Counterpoint forecasts that the penetration of AI-advanced laptops, which will form a majority of the AI laptop PC segment, will pick up in the next two years as chip vendors scale the GenAI capability to mainstream tiers,” said Senior Analyst William Li.

While the overall laptop PC market will register a nearly 3% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) during the forecast period, the AI laptop PC is expected to grow at a CAGR of 59%, as per the research firm’s projections.

As per Counterpoint data, the share of AI-capable laptop PCs in overall shipments will grow from 13% in 2023 to 25% in 2027, by which time, the share of AI-advanced laptop PCs will reach 49% from 0% at present.

Chip vendors, including Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, are playing a major role in driving GenAI in PCs.

Associate Director Brady Wang said the first wave of AI PCs would gradually launch in the market with three major CPU platforms – Intel Meteor Lake, AMD Hawk Point, and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite series. “We believe Intel and AMD will also take GenAI-capable compute mainstream next year to compete with relatively efficient Arm-based Qualcomm and Apple solutions in this AI race,”he added.

Wang added, “At the same time, we expect an upward trend in AI-capable laptops, which leverage high-level to premium-level GPUs to enable even higher-end GenAI applications. This will range from current large language models (LLMs) processed at the edge to advanced large models and even autonomous gaming graphics generating (AI Gfx) models. Players like NVIDIA will look to extend their capabilities and leadership in this segment.”

Associate Director Mohit Agrawal said that the initial GenAI adoption in the PC will be driven by Microsoft through its Copilot AI deeply integrated across Microsoft products, and further in upcoming Windows 12 along with app developers and partners such as OpenAI, Adobe and Hugging Face.

The initial use cases of genAI in PCs would be around productivity and content creation, he said. “Apple could be the dark horse when it comes to adding GenAI capability in the Macs. The company can use its end-to-end vertical approach to leverage its self-designed Arm-based M series of advanced powerful processors, heavily optimized MacOS, newly designed LLM and powerful GenAI application ecosystem.”