The shipment of AI-capable PCs is set to reach 48 million units worldwide in 2024, constituting 18 percent of total PC shipments.
Shipments of AI-capable PCs are anticipated to exceed 100 million in 2025, representing 40 percent of all PC shipments, according to Canalys’ latest forecast. By 2028, Canalys expects PC vendors to dispatch a staggering 205 million AI-capable PCs, showcasing a remarkable compound annual growth rate of 44 percent between 2024 and 2028.
These next-generation PCs, equipped with dedicated AI accelerators such as Neural Processing Units (NPUs), are poised to unlock a myriad of new capabilities for users, including enhanced productivity, personalized experiences, and improved power efficiency. This technological advancement is poised to disrupt the PC market landscape significantly, yielding substantial value gains for vendors and their partners.
Ishan Dutt, Principal Analyst at Canalys, emphasized the transformative potential of AI-accelerating silicon in personal computing, predicting that over 150 million AI-capable PCs will be shipped by the end of 2025.
Ishan Dutt highlighted that these PCs will facilitate novel user experiences, drive productivity enhancements, and enable device personalization at scale, all while offering superior power efficiency, heightened security, and reduced costs associated with running AI workloads. This emerging PC category is expected to inspire innovation among both software developers and hardware vendors, delivering compelling use cases across consumer, commercial, and education domains.
Moreover, Canalys Analyst Kieren Jessop pointed out that the rapid adoption of AI-capable PCs will contribute to a notable increase in the Total Addressable Market (TAM) value of the broader PC market. Kieren Jessop indicated that this trend would propel momentum toward premiumization, particularly in the commercial sector, with a projected 10 percent to 15 percent price premium on AI-capable PCs compared to similarly specified PCs lacking NPU integration in the short term.
By the end of 2025, Kieren Jessop expects over half of PCs priced at US$800 and above to be AI-capable, with this figure soaring to over 80 percent by 2028. Consequently, PC shipments within this price range are anticipated to constitute more than half of the market, elevating the overall value of PC shipments from US$225 billion in 2024 to over US$270 billion in 2028.
Canalys’ latest forecasts underscore the immense potential and far-reaching ramifications of AI-capable PCs in reshaping the industry landscape over the coming years. Vendors that can deliver innovative and differentiated AI-accelerated experiences stand to gain a significant competitive advantage as this disruptive new category gains widespread acceptance.
