NPUs were pushed by Microsoft, who saw the writing on the wall: AI like chatgpt will dominate the user's experience, edge computing is a huge advantage in that regard, and Apple's hardware can do it. NPUs are basically Microsoft trying to fudge their way to a llamacpp-on-Apple-Silicon experience. Obviously it failed, but they couldn't not try.
I think the reason why NPUs failed is that Microsoft's preferred standard ONNX and the runtime they developed is a dud. Exporting models to work on ONNX is a pain in the ass.
> AI like chatgpt will dominate the user's experience
I hope not. Sure they’re helpful, but I’d rather they sit idle behind the scenes, and then only get used when a specific need arises rather than something like a Holodeck audio interface
> NPUs were pushed by Microsoft, who saw the writing on the wall: AI like chatgpt will dominate the user's experience, edge computing is a huge advantage in that regard
Then where is a demo application from Microsoft of a model that I can run locally where my user experience is so much better (faster?) if my computer has an NPU?