Windows 12 will launch in June 2024 with a slew of AI PCs, according to Taiwan’s Commercial Times

Microsoft Windows 12
(Image credit: Future)

Microsoft will launch Windows 12 in June 2024, claims a report published by the Commercial Times today. The business-focused Taiwanese newspaper highlighted this date as very important to the island’s PC industry sector, sparking significant sales of a new wave of AI PCs. Leading industry figures from companies like Acer, Quanta, MSI, and Gigabyte were all said to be very excited about “the first year of AI PC” and the business opportunities it will herald.

Though the Commercial Times report leads with its statement about Windows 12 and the purported June release date, no direct quotes from industry leaders are given in support. It implies the information emanated from recent statements by Acer Chairman and CEO Jason Chen and/or Quanta Chairman Barry Lam.

Both of these important executives from the world of PCs were at the Taiwan Medical Technology Exhibition in Taipei on Thursday. Acer’s Chen was reportedly cautiously optimistic about AI PCs contributing to "continuously accelerate” the industry through a virtuous cycle of AI PCs, new AI app development, new AI PCs, and so on.

Quanta’s Lam was more bullish. He highlighted an expected upturn across three segments for Quanta - AI PC, AI server, and AI automotive electronics. The Commercial Times adds that Lam expects “next summer, when Microsoft launches a new generation of Windows operating systems, AI PCs will also be launched one after another.” However, that doesn't appear to be a direct quote from Mr Lam.

(Image credit: Intel)

If the June 2024 launch of Windows 12 happens, it will be earlier than a few previous clues have indicated. In March, we reported on an Intel Meteor Lake desktop processor (MTL-S) leak, where the as-yet-unreleased Windows version was apparently listed as a supported operating system. At the time, we pondered over Windows 12 being likely to launch in H2 2024, given its recently adopted three-year cycle. Also, in May, we reported that Microsoft was preparing a new own-branded (Arm?) CPU for Windows 12 devices.

(Image credit: AMD)

Intel Meteor Lake chips will be important to the mass adoption of accelerated AI due to dedicated processing hardware on all SoCs in this family. Meanwhile, hardware AI acceleration on the latest AMD Ryzen 7000 family offers is less clear-cut. Only Ryzen mobile 7040 ‘Phoenix’ chips have the XDNA architecture hardware to accelerate local AI processing. This will hopefully change, as there are signs of Phoenix coming to desktop, and of the Ryzen 8000 family chips on the way to mobile in the coming months. All this raises the specter that hardware AI processing support could be one of the minimum spec requirements for Windows 12.

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Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

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  • Sluggotg
    So, we are all supposed to ditch Win11 in June.... I still have multiple computers running Win7. I have a whole bunch running Win10. My only Win11 machines are two new laptops. I don't like Win11. I am hoping I will like Win12 but we will see.

    I wonder what kind of Stupid Interface Changes MS will make to Win12? Will they continue to hide more and more options?

    Ultimately MS is still trying to get a "Pay per Use" or "Annual Subscription" model going. Many companies have done that and more are following. That will end my relationship with MS if they do succeed implementing something like that with Windows.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Sluggotg said:
    So, we are all supposed to ditch Win11 in June
    No, you're not.

    Win 11 is fully supported for another 2 years, minimum. Likely, much farther than that.
    Reply
  • btmedic04
    Windows 10; the last version of windows my a..... 🤣
    Reply
  • Co BIY
    Need some articles about these Ai PCs. Never heard of em.
    Reply
  • ThomasKinsley
    If AI in W12 is a personal offline model that you can train and reshape, then I will be very excited, but if it's mere access to a generic model hosted on a cloud server, then I don't see how it differs from ChatGPT in a web browser. Let's get some real innovation in the AI space.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    btmedic04 said:
    Windows 10; the last version of windows my a..... 🤣
    Well, the last version that anybody's going to want to use
    Reply
  • Giroro
    What is an "AI PC"
    Is it just any computer with a web browser to log into all the cloud-compute subscription services they're going to make us buy?
    Reply
  • Rabohinf
    'OK Google, how do I disable Microsoft AI?"
    Reply
  • zipspyder
    Giroro said:
    What is an "AI PC"
    Is it just any computer with a web browser to log into all the cloud-compute subscription services they're going to make us buy?

    Who knows. I'd like to know as well. It's one of those buzzwords big wig nonengineers like to throw around.
    Reply
  • vanadiel007
    But can it play Crysis? I am thinking the next big thing will be AI tiles, as an improvement to the Windows 8 tiles Good thing Windows 10 was the last version of Windows, or we would never have gotten Windows 12. Forgot to add, will the version after that be called Windows 13, or Windows Friday?
    Reply