5 Ways Intel Is Trying To Reinvent The Modern PC

Intel Reframes The PC As A 'Personal Contribution Platform'

Even as Intel moves away from being a PC-centric business, the semiconductor giant is making a new push for personal computers by reframing them as a "personal contribution platform," which the company outlined this week at Computex 2018 in Taipei.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company made a series of moves this week to promote the PC as a place to enable an individual's "greatest contribution," a term Gregory Bryant, head of Intel's Client Computing Group, used in his Computex keynote. The executive said Intel will achieve this in three ways: by providing a platform that helps people focus "amidst all the chaos," maximize their creativity, and connect and build communities.

That was an encouraging message to Randy Copeland, CEO of Velocity Micro, a Richmond, Va.-based systems builder and Intel partner.

"The key takeaway of Intel's Computex announcements for me is the new and improved emphasis on the PC. Intel has led the PC to be the center of creativity and escape for 40 years, and we absolutely love that innovation for the platform is fully accelerating," he told CRN.

In Bryant's keynote, he said Intel aims to transform the PC into that "personal contribution platform" through five key areas: performance, connectivity, battery life, adaptability and intelligence. In the following slides, we break down what Intel rolled out this week at Computex.

A 28-Core CPU And Faster Mobile Chips

As part of Intel's bid to improve performance, the company unveiled several new processors, as well as a new 380-GB Optane solid-state drive for laptops, the largest and fastest Optane product Intel has released for mobile.

On the processor front, the company revealed a 28-core CPU running at 5GHz that will be commercially available by the end of this year. The company also unveiled the Whiskey Lake U-series and Amber Lake Y-series mobile processors in the eighth-generation Core family that Intel promises will deliver "double-digit" performance gains. The latter chip is designed for ultra-low-power notebooks.

Lastly, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Intel's x86 architecture, the company unveiled a limited edition eighth-generation Core i7-8086K CPU with a 5.0GHz frequency.

5G-Connected PCs Coming Next Year

As a company that wants to position itself as a 5G leader, Intel is looking to lead in the 5G-connected PC race with products slated to launch next year. The company said it has partnered with Sprint to sell Intel-based, 5G-connected laptops and 2-in-1s made by Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Microsoft.

That new focus isn't stopping Intel from cranking out new 4G-connected PCs, however. The company said it expects to add 10 more 4G-connected Pcs from Acer, Asus, Dell and HP, among other OEMs, on top of the 25 products currently being sold.

28-Hour Battery Life With New Display Tech

To cut down on all the times users have to plug the charger into the wall, Intel said it has developed the new Low Power Display Technology that can cut LCD power consumption in half and enable a battery life of up to 28 hours on certain devices. The technology also adds an additional four to eight hours of local video playback.

The company said the new display technology is featured in a 1-watt panel manufactured by Sharp and Innolux.

N ew Form Factors, New 'Creator PCs'

For the issue of adaptability, the company is working on new PC form factors that adapt to different lifestyles and locations. That includes a dual-screen design, which Asus and Lenovo showed off in new products.

The company also introduced the new Creator PCs brand, which is a new line of desktops, laptops, all-in-ones and peripherals optimized for creators of all kinds, ranging from audio engineers to animators. Participating OEMs include Acer, Asus, Corsair, Dell, HP, MSI and Twist. The PCs feature "differentiated aesthetics and peripherals, upgradable form factors, and end-to-end technology optimized for the creator workflow," according to Intel.

Boosting AI Development On The PC

Artificial intelligence was the last area Intel touched on. The company said it plans to boost AI development with the introduction of the new AI on PC Developer Program, which provides tools and training for developers, including the OpenVINO toolkit for video analysis in edge devices.

Intel also worked with Asus on a new concept PC called Project Precog, an AI-powered, dual-screen device that Asus says can automatically optimize the battery at different times of the day, make suggestions in productivity programs like Excel and detect the location and motion of your hands using Intel's Movidius visual processing unit. Asus said its ZenBook Pro also allows developers to take advantage of the Intel Movidius VPU.