Michael Dell Says Adoption of AI PCs is 'Definitely Delayed' (fortune.com) 26
Dell CEO Michael Dell has acknowledged delays in corporate adoption of AI-enabled PCs but remains confident in their eventual widespread uptake, citing his four decades of industry experience with technology transitions.
The PC maker's chief executive told Fortune that while the current refresh cycle is "definitely delayed," adoption is inevitable once sufficient features drive customer demand. Meanwhile, Dell's infrastructure division saw 80% revenue growth last quarter from AI-server sales. The company is supplying servers for xAI's Colossus supercomputer project in Memphis and sees opportunities in "sovereign AI" systems for nations seeking technological independence. "Pick a country ranked by GDP, the [top] 49 other than the U.S., they all need one," Dell said.
The PC maker's chief executive told Fortune that while the current refresh cycle is "definitely delayed," adoption is inevitable once sufficient features drive customer demand. Meanwhile, Dell's infrastructure division saw 80% revenue growth last quarter from AI-server sales. The company is supplying servers for xAI's Colossus supercomputer project in Memphis and sees opportunities in "sovereign AI" systems for nations seeking technological independence. "Pick a country ranked by GDP, the [top] 49 other than the U.S., they all need one," Dell said.
Barely a prediction... (Score:3)
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Current gen NPUs are something of a joke. Their compute is so slow and such an afterthought that they're not very useful. If you need an NPU, you are better served just buying pretty much any decent nvidia GPU in an external enclosure and connecting that to the computer instead of using onboard one.
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However the AI PC hardware wouldn't really be helpful without useful software as well as use cases that actually are useful and reliable.
For most computer users reliability and consistency are more interesting than an AI pestering your life like a clippy on speed.
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Don't worry, Microsoft will be voluntelling you that you will use and enjoy Replay. Since people like being treated like shit, they will gladly gobble down whatever Microsoft tells them to. This will line up nicely with mandatory AI hardware. It will be like trying to find a TV that can't connect to wifi.
sovereign AI (Score:2)
I'm sure he sees 'opportunities in "sovereign AI" systems', all Michael Dell ever sees is a pile of money. What's noteworthy is that the term "sovereign AI" is use without the slightest concern. Just what about an AI would be relevant to sovereignty? Did we have "sovereign calculators"? This is a freudian slip.
The Backup Plan (Score:2)
What's noteworthy is that the term "sovereign AI" is use without the slightest concern.
It's their backup plan. We failed to adopt AI enabled PCs so now they are going to make them adopt us. Goodbye Clippy, say hello to GLaDOS.
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Just what about an AI would be relevant to sovereignty?
I for one welcome our new robot overlords!
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You would! /s
Delayed for very good reason (Score:5, Interesting)
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Considering the number of people who aren't intelligent yet are in positions of power, this doesn't seem to be an issue.
Circular reasoning (Score:3)
adoption is inevitable once sufficient features drive customer demand
This is a classic example of circular reasoning. In other news, hunger will disappear once food production and distribution issues are adequately remedied.
Tautology? (Score:3)
Seems more like a tautology [wikipedia.org] than circular reasoning. They're easy to confuse.
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Hmmmm, I'm not certain that it's either.
Just for fun, let's break it down. Circular Reasoning is best understood as the following argument:
If A then B
If B then A
Therefore B & A
Clearly, the premises don't actually support the conclusion. It is a fallacy.
Breaking down the structure of what was said, we get: "If sufficient features drive customer demand (A), then adoption is inevitable (B)". Does the statement include or infer the inverse premises at the same time..? "If adoption is inevitable (B), then s
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A tautology is a statement that is self-evident from its structure. And I think the statement in the OP qualifies:
adoption is inevitable once sufficient features drive customer demand
I think it comes down to how you interpret "drive customer demand." If it means that customers are induced to buy and use the product, then the statement is a tautology: adoption is inevitable if you induce people to adopt the product. On the other hand, if you interpret it more weakly, such as sufficient features will increase demand for the product, then adoption is more likely but not inevita
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What will an AI PC do for the user? (Score:5, Interesting)
Other than being a great point to take telemetry and metadata gleaned from the end user, perhaps stuff from MS Recall, and process it on site for maximum value to sell off, what does having AI capabilities do for the end user? Having hardware for array flipping may be useful, but for most things, it is general CPU, RAM, and storage that is important. For example, something similar to Intel Optane which can give faster access from SSD to RAM would be more useful for many users than more array multiplication power.
Or maybe something like having smarter components on the motherboard. Jettison Intel FakeRAID and put in a real, hardware RAID chipset with a capacitor or battery cache, so stuff can be fetched at DRAM speeds, and the disk I/O is separate from the OS. Maybe even add a way to back up stuff via snapshots on the disk layer, which can give ransomware-resistance at that level.
Maybe even work with Microsoft to add better virtualization with Hyper-V always on, and a built in easy way to swap between VMs, so one could be on an instance doing work, but easily swap to a gaming instance, where neither instance knows about each other, or that there are any other instances but themselves. This way, the more intrusive DRM from AAA games can sit in its own little playground, while one can do other work without worrying about crashes and other bad stuff caused by it.
If they want to do new silicon, perhaps look at PUFs, as a way for securing data without needing to store keys.
What people want is something that isn't dog slow, is private, decently secure, and does what they want. AI, or stuff that helps the ad companies isn't really on anyone's list.
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I've installed LM Studio on my computer, mostly so that I can do Chat GPT-ish stuff without any privacy concerns. It doesn't seem to be quite as smart as Chat GPT, but it's pretty good. I also installed Stable Diffusion, and it's just alright, but I don't really know what I'm doing.
In time we'll get better models for personal use that will be really useful, but so far it's mostly just the ability to do things offline that you could do online with any web browser.
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Thank you. The LM Studio is a major nice thing to have, and it is getting there. No breadcrumb trail or others feeding off of one's info. There are apps where this will be useful, perhaps games which use AI to adapt around how a user plays a game, for example, if a user uses melee damage, the enemy will always use ranged troops, while if the user uses ranged damage for everything, the enemy will use line of sight.
I hope more companies do stuff offline, but it seems they want it all online, just for contr
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Other than being a great point to take telemetry and metadata gleaned from the end user, perhaps stuff from MS Recall, and process it on site for maximum value to sell off, what does having AI capabilities do for the end user?
High accuracy voice to text, local LLMs, image/video segmentation, image creation, advanced video and audio processing, OCR, scene recognition, language translation... The list is quite extensive. Mundane stuff like a word processor that with a click of a button turns rough hurried ideas with shitty grammar and snarky language into a professional memo with excellent grammar has widespread utility.
Having hardware for array flipping may be useful, but for most things, it is general CPU, RAM, and storage that is important. For example, something similar to Intel Optane which can give faster access from SSD to RAM would be more useful for many users than more array multiplication power.
For most end user applications performance improvement by increasing SSD bandwidth is already well into dimini
AI numbers will increase... (Score:4, Interesting)
When the only pre-made computers you can buy all come with AI, everyone will start having AI enabled computers. If we're lucky, us pc builders will still have access to non-AI pc components but for how long, I can't speculate.
I guess the keyboard... (Score:2)
Curious (Score:2)
Re: Curious (Score:2)
Is this a threat? (Score:2)
Delay as much as you can you PC renewal (Score:2)
Mr. Michael is slightly older than me, but I've also lived a lot of transitions, from the client/customer side and here is my take:
Is almost certain that Win12 will make AI features a HARD requirement. What is not clear yet is "What AI features will be the baseline for Win12?".
Will it be 40TOPs?
More TOPs (rendering the current incarnations of Qualcomm, AMD and Intel AI processors obsolete )?
Less TOPs allowing VIA/ZhaoXin to repurpose the CNS processor with its 10TOPs NPU unit for client use?
Forced NPU? Or A