The end of the year is a good time to look back on things that dominated industry news. This includes the AI PC, which should continue to garner attention in the coming year. PC sales were up in 2024, and we should be in store for the anticipated refresh in 2025. Overall, we predict a 2% to 3% growth for the PC industry.
Wow, the year went by fast, or maybe it was just those long naps that made time seem to fly.
The big news for 2024 was the AI PC, and it will likely be the big news for 2025 too—at the very least, it will be in the news during 2025.
CES will show us all the new things we simply have to have and probably don’t need.
The post-four-year COVID refresh didn’t seem to happen, but overall, PC sales were up for the year. Now, resellers and vars are predicting 2025 will be the refresh, led by the ethereal AI PC that somehow will be defined in terms that make sense to the enterprise and consumers, other than, “Because we can.”
AI is easing its way into everything we do. It’s like electricity—no single application or product but touches everything we do.
AI and the Web will raise all of our IQs, knowledge, and, hopefully, imagination. Some traditional, mechanical, and robotic jobs will be taken over by AI. For the most part, that will be a good thing, as those jobs will be done faster, more accurately, and less expensively. But charming and quaint jobs like typesetting, line editing, filing, and pencil sharpening will be lost. Making or getting coffee for the boss, however, will survive. X-ray analysis, exoplanet searching and noise reduction in video, audio, and photos will be improved. The list of improvements is enormous. But with change comes pain as well as benefits.
GPUs and NPUs, which are the engines of AI, will be designed by AI.
One of the big question marks for 2025 is Intel. Ask four people, and you’ll get eight answers, especially if they are pundits or analysts. Everybody seems to know what Intel should have done or should do, except Intel. All that free advice; strange how they don’t take it.
AMD, on the other hand, seems to be doing everything right. Can they maintain that winning streak?
Nvidia is the SpaceX of the industry, soaring higher, faster, and bigger every time you read about them or hear from them.
Qualcomm, Apple, and Arm continue their three ring-around-the-rosy conflict, making lawyers richer so they can buy expensive new PCs. Meanwhile, the Bank of Son (SoftBank) pledges to invest $100 billion in the US, which is a neat trick considering he doesn’t have $100 billion, but he can probably raise it.
The elves at the big iron companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Supermicro are building AI factories and equipping the ones they don’t build. Their backlogs are staggering and making their shareholders giggle uncontrollably.
The world is holding its breath to see if the Donald will tax US consumers with his threatened tariffs; it’s even betting that he will or won’t, which makes it damn tough to build a business plan—you have to make at least two of them. The cliché pivot will have a new emphasis in 2025 as companies try to duck and weave around the political winds and whims.
Overall, we’re predicting a modest 2% to 3% growth for the PC industry tracking the GDP and a potential 10% to 20% growth in the data center if they can find enough electricity and water to run them.