Looking for Some Clarity on Copilot+ PC (Premium)

Copilot+ PC. Is it a brand? A specification? A secret agreement with Qualcomm designed to disenfranchise Intel? A little clarity would be nice.

To fully understand what's happening here, we need to revisit the past. And don't I just wish that I had Microsoft Recall to help me with that? But since that's not yet possible, I've had to do this the old-fashioned way, using my own (admittedly flawed) memory, Thurrott.com search, and Google Search. And here's the (relevant) history as I understand it.

Microsoft released the Surface Pro X in November 2019. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx-based Microsoft SQ1 processor, Surface Pro X was billed as an "always-connected PC," which, as you may recall was a big part of the Windows 10 on Arm push. The focus back then was on connectivity, not AI, and always-connected PCs came with a smartphone-like eSIM for, well, always-on connectivity.

So why start with Surface Pro X and always-connected PCs? Because of the parallels with today: Then, as now, Intel, Microsoft's biggest silicon partner by far, was upset by the software giant's dalliances with Qualcomm. And so it demanded to be included in the always-connected initiative, just as it had previously demanded to be included in the SoC discussion (with Atom) when Microsoft announced its first Arm push with Windows RT years earlier. History just keeps repeating itself.

Anyway, Surface Pro X was revved with a second-generation version with an SQ2 processor (8cx Gen 2) in October 2020. And then that was replaced by Surface Pro 9, which came in Intel and Arm/SQ3 (8cx Gen 3) processor versions, in October 2022. Few customers purchased any of these PCs because of ongoing performance and compatibility issues. The focus remained on connectivity: Indeed, the Arm version of Surface Pro 9 was marketed as "Surface Pro 9 with 5G."

Microsoft fixed the compatibility problems for the most part, but Qualcomm's processors continued to lag behind in performance. Except in one area, which seemed unimportant at the time. Behind the scenes, the transition to hardware accelerated AI was quietly underway: Unlike their predecessors, the SQ2/8cx Gen 2 included an integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) in addition to their Kryo CPU and Adreno GPU. The SQ2/8cx Gen 2 could achieve 9 TOPS (trillion of operations per second)of hardware accelerated AI performance, and the SQ3/8cx Gen 3 landed at 29 TOPS. Not that we ever discussed such things back then.

What we did discuss, haltingly, was what we could do with this curious new hardware feature. And among the benefits it marketed for Surface Pro 9 with 5G was compatibility with something called Windows Studio Effects, a set of webcam and microphone features that required an NPU and provided things like Portrait Blur, Automatic Framing, Eye Contact, and Voice Focus. Surface Pro 9 with 5G was, for a time, the only PC compatible with Windows Studio Effects.

Windows Studio Effects deserves a short discussion. It's an ...