Image: Mark Hachman / IDG
One of the problems with AI apps that run locally on the PC…is a lack of apps that run locally on the PC. To solve that problem, Intel released AI Playground, a one-stop shop to run apps specifically on a Core Ultra.
Dan Rogers, who runs Intel’s client performance marketing lab, highlighted the app at Intel’s Berlin launch of its Core Ultra Series 2 or “Lunar Lake” processor. which now has enough TOPS to qualify as a Copilot+ PC.
The free app can be downloaded from Github and includes helpful features like AI picture generation, a chatbot, and the ability to enhance photos you’ve taken. It will apparently require a Core Ultra PC, not surprisingly. It’s not clear whether it will run on a PC with equal AI capabilities, such as a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite.
Rogers showed off two capabilities in a brief demo: an AI art generator, and a local language model. It’s not clear as to how detailed the generative AI art is, for example, or whether it uses the GPU or just the NPU. Intel’s vice president, Jim Johnson, talked earlier about Intel’s capabilities to use floating-point math rather than integer to provide more detailed images.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers’ News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.
