Making AI tangible and relevant

HP recently held its Imagine AI event in New York City, where the company brought together its hardware and software strategies to demonstrate how AI is becoming increasingly tangible. At the event, HP talked about the latest hardware advancements with the EliteBook Ultra and OmniBook X and introduced a new AMD-based OmniBook Ultra. It also featured a parade of third-party developers using HP’s Snapdragon X Elite-based machines to run a plethora of different AI applications. In addition to making artificial intelligence tangible, the purpose of the show was to demonstrate HP’s leadership in AI and how it is making AI real.

Z extension from HP AI Studio

Earlier this year, HP announced a set of AI tools for data scientists running on HP’s Z commercial workstations. At the New York event, HP announced the integration of technology from the Galileo startup into Z software by HP AI Studio, which has a platform that enables end-to-end evaluation and observation of AI models. Galileo is designed to make AI models safer and more reliable through its set of foundational tools and models.

Although Galileo is still a fairly small startup, it already has partnerships with HP and Nvidia to enable better model deployment and monitoring. It will be interesting to see how Galileo’s tools improve HP’s AI Studio and whether data scientists and other AI developers embrace these tools.

HP’s OmniBook Ultra claims Crown with AI PC

We’ve seen a lot of gamesmanship when it comes to PCs with AI and Copilot+ capabilities, so I guess it’s no surprise that HP and AMD have been quietly working together to build a special version of the new Ryzen series processor AMD’s AI 300 for the OmniBook Ultra with a 55 TOPS NPU. That’s faster than AMD’s own stated maximum NPU performance of 50 TOPS for the Ryzen AI 300 series, not to mention faster than the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite that powers all current Copilot+ PCs with 45 HORSES of AI performance. That said, we still have no idea what kind of efficiency the AMD chip delivers, or how it performs per watt against the competition.

This special edition processor is a variant of the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. It features a Radeon 890M GPU and a 12-core Zen 5 CPU with four cores of Zen 5 performance and eight cores of Zen 5c efficiency, which should give it has some of the best performance characteristics of any processor on the market today. (For more on Zen 5, see my recent write-up of AMD’s announcements at Computex 2024.) HP claims that the OmniBook Ultra using it will deliver 21 hours of battery life, but I’m not sure that claim will hold. oppose the OmniBook X or EliteBook Ultra. It will also come standard with a 14-inch 2240 x 1400 resolution IPS 300-nit low-power multi-touch display with 100% sRGB color accuracy.

If some of these HP brand names are a bit confusing, HP recently simplified all of its product naming so that anything consumer is called Omni and anything for business or commercial use is called Elite; then add “-Book” for laptops or “-Desk” for desktops. The rest of the name indicates where it is in the product line, with “Ultra” being at the top of the line and “X” being just below.

That means the OmniBook Ultra will be HP’s top dog within its consumer lineup; it sits right above the OmniBook X, which features the Snapdragon X Elite processor and already has Copilot+ capabilities. That said, the OmniBook Ultra is expected to receive Copilot+ capabilities by the end of the year, once Microsoft begins certifying non-Arm systems for Copilot+ capabilities.

HP also packed this laptop with a lot of compelling features on top of the fast processor, including a very high-end 9MP camera paired with a Poly Camera Pro app that has AI capabilities. This is also the first time HP has brought Wolf Security’s endpoint security solution to its consumer lineup. I’ve personally found Wolf Security to be extremely useful on HP’s commercial laptops, and I think it’s great that HP is offering this at the top of its consumer line. Having this capability in a high-end consumer device makes sense because laptops like this end up in small businesses as well.

HP also says the OmniBook Ultra is made from 90% recycled metal. I’m curious how much use this laptop’s battery will get when running Wolf Security paired with the more powerful Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor. The good thing is that this laptop has a 68 Wh battery, which suggests it should have longevity. good battery life. HP also did its users a favor by including MediaTek’s Filogic 360 Wi-Fi 7 chipset in this device, ensuring that it will be future-proofed on the connectivity front, not just with its AI capabilities. These capabilities include HP AI Companion, hand gesture controls, proximity lock and wake, and screen time and distance reminders. The OmniBook Ultra will be available in August on HP.com starting at $1,449.99.

OmniStudio X 27 and OmniStudio X 31.5 All-in-One Desktop PC

These OmniStudio X systems are very similar: they both use Intel Core Ultra processors – Core Ultra 5 (125H) for the X 27 and Core Ultra 7 (155H) for the X 31.5 – and both look like monitors (at 27 and 31.5 inches , respectively) that happen to have a full PC inside them. There’s an optional upgrade to an Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU for extra graphics horsepower at X 31.5, which makes sense when you consider the computer has a 4K display paired with its 5MP camera and Poly Studio sound.

HP claims that the OmniStudio X 31.5 is the first all-in-one PC to receive IMAX Enhanced certification, but I’ll be honest with you: it feels like a hollow exercise in getting a Dolby certification for something to make a little more money. Interestingly, HP didn’t bend to the AI ​​PC branding with the OmniStudio X AIO PCs, but said they use 25% recycled metals and 35% recycled plastics. The OmniStudio X AIO computers will be available in August with a starting price of $1,149.99.

Many AI software developers

HP really rolled out the red carpet for its developer partners at the event, devoting time to them both on stage and behind the scenes. There was an entire area dedicated to developers showcasing their AI-powered PC apps on HP’s Copilot+ PCs. These included major developers such as Google, Adobe, Blackmagic Design and AVID. There were also smaller developers, including Cephable, Djay Pro, Beautiful.ai, Polymer, Laminar Neo, Omnibridge, Loccus.ai, and Virtual Sapiens, all of which demonstrated various local AI computing applications on HP PCs.

I experienced a few of these apps and it was exciting to see such a variety of capabilities. I was particularly impressed with Skylum’s Luminar Neo photo editing app and Virtual Sapiens’ speech coaching app.

While we’re certainly still very much in the early days of AI, it’s great to see how many different developers are already working directly with HP and are able to demonstrate the power of local AI computing. The NPU is a new core for many developers to target, but it brings significant improvements in efficiency and latency, while also increasing AI security. I would have liked to see more from HP directly, but I think it’s good for HP to embrace its partners and give them the spotlight.

What’s next for HP and AI?

I believe HP has demonstrated that it has a strong multi-vendor approach to AI when it comes to silicon and hardware, and that it will build whatever it needs using components from whoever can provide them. I believe we’ll see more AI chip vendors in the coming year after Qualcomm’s Windows on Arm franchise ends this year, and it’ll be interesting to see how OEMs handle that kind of complexity. HP seems willing and able to handle the complexity because, really, consumers don’t even have to worry about what chip is inside their computer as long as it delivers the experience they want.

That said, I believe HP and other OEMs will be waiting with bated breath for the release of Copilot+ on x86, especially for high-end machines like the OmniBook Ultra. I’m still not sure why AMD kept the press and analysts in the dark about the possibility of the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 having a special 55 TOPS SKU when the company launched it during Computex, or why AMD didn’t tell us in the editor The Day It Was held last month, but I think all of this reinforces AMD’s NPU performance leadership – although I suspect that won’t last for long.