The first personal computers featuring AMD’s new Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 400 processors are now being sold by several major manufacturers. These chips are part of a growing trend in computing where artificial intelligence (AI) is processed directly on the device rather than relying on cloud-based services. This shift allows for more privacy and faster performance in tasks that require AI, such as image recognition or language processing. The Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 400 series is built on AMD’s latest Zen 5 architecture, which can include up to 16 central processing unit (CPU) cores. It also comes with a graphics processing unit (GPU) that has 40 cores and a neural processing unit (NPU) that can reach up to 55 tera-operations per second (TOPS). The system includes up to 192 gigabytes of unified memory, which is especially useful for AI applications that generate content, such as text or images. This memory can be allocated to both graphics and AI tasks, allowing for more complex operations on a local machine. According to AMD, this setup enables AI models with over 300 billion parameters to run directly on a personal computer, provided they are optimized using a technique called 4-bit quantization. This is a significant advancement, as such large models were previously only possible on powerful cloud-based infrastructures. The platform supports both Windows and Linux operating systems and works with popular AI tools like PyTorch, vLLM, llama.cpp, Llama, ComfyUI, and LM Studio, making it versatile for developers and researchers. AMD also emphasizes the professional benefits of this local computing power. Companies can run AI agents on their workstations without sending sensitive data like internal documents or source code to cloud servers. This setup offers greater security and control. A hybrid model is also available, where local capabilities are combined with cloud-based AI services as needed. HP has already introduced the ZBook Ultra G3a with the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495, preloaded with the Perplexity Computer software. Lenovo is also set to launch the ThinkCentre X Ultra in the fourth quarter of the year.