AI PCs Will Dominate By 2027, Says Asus Executive
Demand for AI PCs – which ship with a neural processing unit (NPU) to assist with AI tasks – has been relatively modest so far. The market share of AI PCs is 'still single digit', Eric Chen, Asus's senior corporate vice president told me in a briefing to coincide with last week's Computex trade show. 'It's not that big,' he admitted.
However, he said that growth over the next couple of years will mean that by 2027 'over 50%' of total PC shipments will be AI PCs.
Asus's predictions are roughly in line with that of major analysts such as Gartner, IDC and Canalys, all of which have predicted steep growth in AI-capable PCs over the next few years.
The big challenge for PC makers is giving businesses and consumers a solid reason to pay a premium for an AI PC.
Popular AI services such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini or Anthropic's Claude are cloud based and don't directly benefit from the presence of an NPU. Meanwhile, Microsoft has struggled to deliver compelling AI features in Windows, with the highly controversial and much delayed Recall feature only arriving on Copilot+ machines at the end of last month. Microsoft was forced to pull an early test version of the all-seeing Recall after serious security flaws were discovered by testers, which have now been fixed.
Chen said 'the big bottleneck" right now is that users don't fully understand how AI can help them. He gave an example of how Asus is deploying AI within its own business to check the paperwork that comes with business transactions. Previously that task was done by hand, but now the company is using AI to process the paperwork.
'They used to spend 200 hours to do the checks,' said Chen. 'Now, three hours. That's a big, big difference.'
It's those kinds of tasks involving sensitive customer data that companies might not want uploaded to cloud services that will really take advantage of the local processing power offered by AI PCs, Chen claimed. 'A lot of companies and people, they don't want their data to upload to the cloud,' he said.
Although Asus has been developing a suite of its own applications, such as Muse Tree, which offers AI image generation without relying on expensive, resource-hungry cloud services, Chen concedes that professionals will still turn to the cloud when they need the optimal quality.
He said that 'local is already good enough" for many lightweight tasks, however, and that cloud AI services will eventually start tapping the power available to AI PCs. 'The cloud and the local, they will work together. That is one of the trends that will happen,' Chen added.
AI PCs may well hold more appeal to businesses than consumers right now, and that's perhaps one of the reasons that Asus has decided to ramp up its commercial offering, pitting the company into even stronger competition with rivals such as Dell and Lenovo.
'In the past 35 years, we are more focused on the consumer PC business,' said Chen. 'In the coming years, Asus will develop our commercial business as well.'
IDC's figures for 2024 worldwide PC shipments put Asus in fifth position, with a market share of around 7%. But Chen said the company had 'very aggressive' plans to attack the commercial market in a bid to close the gap to market leader Lenovo, which shipped more than three times as many PCs as Asus did in 2024, according to IDC's figures.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
China's Zeekr says it did not sell or register zero-mileage used cars
BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese automotive firm Zeekr said in a statement on Sunday that used cars described in media reports as having zero mileage were exhibition cars that were insured, but it did not sell or register them. The company has set up a team to investigate and make improvements, Zeekr said, adding that it opposed the sale of zero-mileage used cars. On Saturday, Reuters and state-backed China Securities Journal newspaper had reported that Zeekr had insured cars before selling them to buyers, inflating sales.
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How AI, robotics and late artist Morrisseau are helping fight art fraud
Famed Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau was browsing a Vancouver gallery with his longtime friend Cory Dingle around 1993 when a painting stopped them in their tracks. The pair asked who created it. The answer? "Norval Morrisseau." The trouble? The artist had never seen the work, let alone painted it. "We had a little chuckle and we left," Dingle recalled. "Then, I said, 'What do you want to do about this?' He said, 'You know, you can't police the world.'" Morrisseau, who died in 2007, was a self-taught, trailblazing artist known for his pictographic style and membership in the Indian Group of Seven. He was the first Indigenous artist to have his work shown in a contemporary gallery in Canada and now his paintings sell for millions. But the incident Dingle remembers proved to be an omen. At least 6,000 fake paintings have since been uncovered, costing Morrisseau's estate $100 million in losses. The phenomenon amounts to what police have called the biggest art fraud in world history. Finding fakes is time consuming work. It requires co-operation from galleries and private collectors, a trained, critical eye cast on anything purporting to be made by the late artist and the patience to keep pursuing justice through the court system. But now a new tool has emerged to help the battle: artificial intelligence. Bogged down by the enormity of the task at hand, Morrisseau's estate, which is run by Dingle, partnered with two art-loving professors to build software nicknamed "Norval AI" about three years ago. It can analyze art pieces and determine the probability that they're a genuine Morrisseau. "Because the fakes were so terrible ... we got to a point with our AI that it was so good at picking them out," Dingle said. "There was no problem." Yet the estate knew fakes were still out there. They were just getting harder to detect because court hearings were revealing the tell-tale signs of a fake Morrisseau — thinner paint lines, for example — which allowed fraudsters to make their works even more convincing. Enter Chloë Ryan. The then-engineering student loved making large-scale abstract paintings. Even though such works could sell for a decent amount, they often take weeks or months to create, narrowing the odds that she could make artistry a viable career. She could make prints of her pieces, but they just weren't the same because they lacked the texture of a real painting. The conundrum became a source of inspiration for Ryan, leading her to start tinkering with robots and paint on her Montreal balcony. She eventually developed Acrylic Robotics, a company that uses technology to paint pieces at the behest of an artist. The process starts with an artist painting with a stylus on a drawing table, which acts like a massive tablet. Amazon Web Services software analyzes and logs every movement, detecting millions of details in the piece, including the strokes, brush pressure, pigment and speed. "We like to think of AI as a powerful magnifying glass," said Patricia Nielsen, AWS Canada's head of digital transformation and AI. "It can detect those patterns and the anomalies that might be invisible to the human eye ... so art experts, historians, can dig in further." With that data, Acrylic's robotic arm can then paint a replica so precise, Ryan says it's indistinguishable from an original — exactly what Dingle needed to put Norval AI to the test. A mutual connection put him in touch with Ryan last August. Shortly after, they got to work. Because Morrisseau isn't alive to paint images on Ryan's tablet, Acrylic's robot (Dingle affectionately calls it Dodo) had a more complicated feat to accomplish. Dingle would send Ryan a hi-resolution image of one of Morrisseau's works. Acrylic Robotics would then have an artist learn about eccentricities of his style and paint the piece before Acrylic's robot would give it a try. Everything the robot painted was analyzed by the estate and Norval AI. The two sides have been going back and forth for about a year, picking out errors in the robot's execution and poring over new works. Early editions had several spots where both the estate and Norval AI could tell the robot had stopped a long stroke to pick up more paint — something uncharacteristic of Morrisseau. "If you look at one of our works randomly on the street, you wouldn't be able to say that's made by a robot, but we can't yet do all art under the sun because there's a lot of techniques that we haven't yet built in," Ryan said. "We can't use every tool in an artist's arsenal yet. If an artist is out here finger painting, obviously we can't do stuff like that." Newer editions of the Morrisseaus are about 69 per cent accurate and expected to improve even more. But Dingle admits, "I have kind of been holding back on getting to 100 per cent." He's scared of developing anything too perfect before he and Acrylic Robotics have found a foolproof method for ensuring a Morrisseau recreation can't be passed off as the real thing. It's a concern Ryan shares. "The worst thing that could happen is that we release this without consultation with groups that have been harmed by art forgery and this technology is used against artists," she said. They're currently exploring markings or other features that can be embedded in pieces to denote they're not originals. Once they settle on an ideal method, they'll have an avenue to disseminate recreations of Morrisseau's work — responsibly. While some might think that's the last thing an estate plagued by forgeries would want to do, Dingle sees it as a way to bring Morrisseau's work to the people who would value it most. "There's two schools named after Norval. There are healing institutions. There are academic institutions. There are remote Indigenous communities," said Dingle, sitting in front of a rarely-shown Morrisseau. "They could never afford to buy this painting, to hang it in their halls, to have the healing and the lessons of it, so we need to be able to produce high level reproductions that bring the life of that painting to these places." This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 20, 2025. Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press Sign in to access your portfolio
Los Angeles Times
26 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Is AI a Career Threat or a Competitive Edge for Attorneys?
Why Lawyers and Firms are Racing to Become Tech Experts As artificial intelligence promises to reshape the legal profession, much of the conversation centers on which jobs will disappear. But attorneys looking to secure their future may need to flip the script: Rather than viewing AI as a threat, successful lawyers are becoming subject matter experts in the technology itself. 'To be effective counselors, attorneys working at the forefront of innovation need to understand the relevant technology at a deep level,' said Zachary M. Briers, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP focusing on complex technology and intellectual property issues. 'When it comes to technology companies, almost all difficult legal issues turn on granular distinctions in technological advancements. This is particularly true with new platform technologies, such as AI, which defy conventional legal analyses,' Briers added. This need will only increase as litigation around artificial intelligence becomes more complex, according to Nathaniel L. Bach, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. 'The more a lawsuit or advice implicates the inner workings of an AI model, the more attorneys will need to know to properly advise clients, ask the right questions of adversaries, and explain the technology to courts in both accurate and persuasive ways,' said Bach. Having more than 'a surface-level understanding' of AI may even be a matter of professional competence, said Daniel B. Garrie, a mediator, arbitrator and special master with JAMS, an alternative dispute resolution provider. He is also a founder and partner of Law & Forensics, a legal engineering firm. 'Lawyers are ethically obligated to stay abreast of technological advancements under the ABA's Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8,' said Garrie. 'A deeper comprehension of how AI systems function, including their design, data dependencies, and operational limitations, is crucial for providing competent advice, particularly in areas like eDiscovery, data privacy and intellectual property disputes,' he continued. Beyond helping to win cases and complying with ethical obligations, understanding AI could be a major career booster. David Lisson, the head of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP's GenAI litigation initiative, said that the AI space represented a big opportunity for attorneys at the start of their career - a way to stand out from the pack. 'I always think the key to a successful junior associate is being an expert in something. And this is an area that you can really dig into,' he said. 'If you come and figure out what this model is doing and how it's doing it, you'll be the one that the senior attorney comes to, right? And you'll be the one that the client comes to because you're the one that understands what's actually going on.' From a branding perspective, at least, firms appear to understand the value in highlighting the AI credentials of their attorneys. Over the past two years, a flurry of AI practice groups has emerged in California and elsewhere. But experts, including those who head up these groups, acknowledge that this strategy will need to evolve. 'This trend has begun and will continue, but these groups will almost certainly evolve to be increasingly specialized over time, as it becomes clear that 'AI' is far too broad a category to usefully define a practice,' Keith Enright, cochair of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP's Artificial Intelligence Practice Group said. Bach said that AI practice groups were both 'a necessity and a calling card' for many firms. To be effective, these groups would need to encompass practice areas spanning intellectual property, privacy and technology. 'The AI space is too big and moves too fast for any one lawyer to know everything,' he said. That's a sentiment shared by Peter H. Werner, co-chair of Cooley LLP's global emerging companies and venture capital practice group. He said that the recent emergence of AI practice groups was 'similar to having an 'internet' practice group in the 1990s.' 'Some firms are forming 'AI practice groups' to signal to the market that they're focused on AI-related things. But the ubiquity of AI and related technologies will mean that the work that is done in every practice will be impacted by AI,' he said. He added that Cooley instead has 'an interdisciplinary, interdepartmental internal task force that's intended to be a clearinghouse to coordinate our work on AI-related matters, many of which implicate multiple practices.' Briers said that while 'most major firms now have a practice group that is dedicated to AI-related issues,' it was 'not enough that a few attorneys at each firm become familiar with this disruptive technology. It needs to be a firm-wide initiative.' Attorneys who wish to become AI-literate have options. Law schools appear attuned to the fact that there will be an increasing demand for such knowledge. A 2024 survey from the American Bar Association found that more than half of respondent schools now offer classes on AI. Many of these initial efforts focus on introducing students to the appropriate and ethical use of AI tools in their practice. However, some go further: UC Berkeley, for example, will begin offering a specialization in AI law and regulation this summer as part of its executive track LLM program, including a unit on the fundamentals of AI technology. The curriculum for the new certificate was designed in consultation with an advisory group of industry leaders, including representatives from Anthropic and Meta. Other schools are offering shorter standalone graduate certificates or programs in artificial intelligence for legal practitioners, including USC Gould School of Law and Harvard Law School. Beyond these programs, attorneys with an existing science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) background might be at an advantage to their colleagues in an AI world, though legal experts disagree on the significance of this. 'The shift to AI is indeed an opportunity for attorneys with a background in computer science, data science, or engineering areas to gain a distinct advantage in understanding the nuances of AI-related legal challenges,' Garrie said. 'As AI legal work often intersects with technical fields like cybersecurity, data analytics and software licensing, firms may increasingly value and recruit legal talent with such dual credentials. This intersectional expertise enhances both client trust and legal efficacy,' he added. Clinton Ehrlich, a partner at Trial Lawyers for Justice who is a member of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Artificial Intelligence Committee and has a computer science background, said lawyers working on AI cases or issues was analogous to lawyers working in the patent space, where many attorneys have a STEM background. 'This is an area of the law where skills are required beyond those that most generalists have,' Ehrlich said. 'It doesn't mean that a generalist couldn't be involved on a team that's litigating a case involving questions about AI, but I think it's very important to have at least one team member with really deep domain knowledge of how these systems work, so that you aren't just translating everything through the medium of popular science,' he said. Others were more circumspect, emphasizing that a willingness to learn and engage was far more important than prior education experience. Werner said that attorneys 'don't necessarily need a technical degree for most things, but you need curiosity. The best lawyers are quick studies. We work with cutting edge technology and life sciences companies, using complex methodologies to do complicated things.' He predicted that as the law and technology become increasingly intertwined, we could witness 'hybrid teams of people at firms that include lawyers and technologists that collectively pitch for and deliver service to clients – think e-discovery on steroids.' According to Enright, 'Intellectual fluidity and the ability to frame questions effectively will be vastly more valuable than a STEM background.' Vivek Mohan, the other co-chair of Gibson Dunn's artificial intelligence practice, said that whenever he talks to law students and recent graduates interested in the practice area, he tells them, 'I look for ongoing, demonstrated interest. Certainly, an undergraduate degree in a related area is a strong signal of interest.' But he cautioned that an attorney's role is 'not to substitute ourselves for the engineers or AI researchers at our companies. It is to listen carefully, ask probing questions and then provide the best legal advice we can.' He added that attorneys interested in AI should get comfortable with occasionally not knowing what is going on with AI models, given even their engineers are not always able to explain how a model reached a particular answer. 'Learn what you can, but you have to be able to get comfortable with operating in an environment that carries a certain degree of uncertainty,' he advised. The other risk of overemphasizing prior education? Instilling a sense that technological stasis is acceptable, said Briers. 'An engineering background might be helpful in understanding these new technologies, but it's not necessary. In my experience, too many attorneys who lack a STEM background use it as an excuse to not learn new technological skills. They do so to the detriment of their clients' interests,' he said. The Los Angeles/San Francisco Daily Journal is a publication for lawyers practicing in California, featuring updates on the courts, regulatory changes, the State Bar and the legal community at large.
