ChatGPT frenzy to lift PC sales as hardware makers from Lenovo to Oppo bet on generative AI, analysts say

Name: How does China’s AI stack up against ChatGPT?
Uploaded: 2023-11-10T09:45:45.000Z
Duration: 5 min 3 s
Description: How does China’s AI stack up against ChatGPT?

Manufacturers are counting on the rising adoption of generative AI products to spur consumers to upgrade to devices with built-in AI capabilities

Computers with chips that have built-in AI capabilities are expected to account for 86 per cent of laptops shipped in China in 2027, according to IDC

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AI innovation will drive up consumer demand for new PCs in the coming years, according to IDC. Photo: Bloomberg

Ben Jiangin Beijing

Published: 5:45pm, 10 Nov 2023

The growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to lift sales of personal computers (PCs) in the coming years, as hardware firms rush to embed the technology into devices, according to recent research by IT consultancy IDC.

Shipments of PCs have slowed in the past two years after a wave of pandemic-induced purchases from consumers working from home in 2020 and 2021. The Asia-Pacific PC market – which includes desktop and laptop computers and workstations – is estimated to fall 7.6 per cent this year after a 11.6 per cent slump in 2022.

However, manufacturers are counting on the rising adoption of generative AI products, which include the likes of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Chinese internet search giant Baidu’s Ernie Bot, to spur consumers to upgrade to devices with built-in AI capabilities, driving up demand in an otherwise sluggish PC market, according to IDC.

OpenAI announced this week at its first-ever developer conference that ChatGPT, which was launched just a year ago, now has over 100 million weekly active users globally.

05:03

How does China’s AI stack up against ChatGPT?

Baidu’s Ernie Bot, launched in March, had amassed over 70 million users in China, said Wang Haifeng, the company’s technology chief, on Thursday at the annual World Internet Conference that took place in the picturesque canal town of Wuzhen, in eastern Zhejiang province.

ChatGPT is officially unavailable in China.

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