China's first 'AI PC' processor: 12-core Arm CPU on 6nm, 45 TOPS from NPU for AI workloads

China has just jumped on the AI PC bandwagon with the country's first AI-focused consumer processor based on the Arm architecture, with 45 TOPS of AI workload performance.

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Chinese company Cixin Technology has unveiled its new Cixin P1, based on the Arm architecture-similar to Qualcomm's new fleet of Arm-based Snpadragon X series SoCs. The Cixin P1 features a 12-core Arm CPU split into 8 performance cores and 4 efficient cores, with a boost of up to 3.2GHz, and made on the 6nm process node.

Cixin is reportedly promising up to 45 TOPS of AI performance from the NPU inside of its new Cixin P1 SoC, which means they instantly jump up to the level of AMD's new Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" APUs (which have just hit the market inside of a large number of Strix Point-powered laptops) and Intel's coming Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" CPUs (ready for a September 3 announcement).

45 TOPS of AI performance means that Cixin's new Cixin P1 SoC has full compliance (as set by Microsoft) to be a Copilot+ PC.

The new Cixin P1 also supports up to 64GB of LPDDR5-6400 memory, with the chip supporting up to a 4K 120Hz display. There's PCIe Gen4, USB Type-C, and more supported by the Cixin P1. It'll be interesting to see companies adopt this new Arm-based SoC, as it'll be a great fight against Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X-powered chips (which I'm sure cost far more to make, and thus cost to the consumer).