Microsoft's just-announced classification of "Copilot+ PCs" leaves a lot of users out in the cold. To access a suite of new AI features in an upcoming build of Windows 11, you'll need a processor with a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that capable of hitting 40 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second). To date, there's only one processor family that can hit that number: Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon X series of mobile chips. And the first laptops with Snapdragon X aren't even due to ship for a few weeks.
Anyone who currently owns a laptop or desktop — even if it has one of the best CPUs — is out of luck and won't have access to these features. Laptops based on Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake CPUs will ship in Q3 and will meet the 40+ TOPS requirement, but any computer you currently own, or buy today, will not.
