Intel releases NPU drivers with Arrow Lake support — AI PC users will have yet another component that may require regular updates

If you own an “AI PC” from Intel or AMD, that means you have an onboard Neural Processing Unit (NPU) alongside your typical CPU cores and graphics. And if you weren’t aware, it seems — at least for Intel NPUs — you’ll have yet another driver to potentially update on a regular basis. Even if you don’t bother with Windows’ AI PC features, these driver updates include security fixes alongside fixing issues or adding features, so it’s probably a good idea to be diligent with these updates.

If you’re using an Intel NPU on a Windows 10 PC rather than a Windows 11 PC, Intel also recommends that you outright disable the NPU within the BIOS rather than keeping it or its drivers enabled. What happens if you don’t do this isn’t clear (probably nothing for most situations), but leaving a potentially unusable NPU enabled could serve as a vector for attack or contribute to system instability.

Anyway, the latest Intel NPU driver was released on October 11. Intel NPU driver version 32.0.100.3053 adds support for OpenVINO 2024.4 and Arrow Lake CPUs. These are minor but expected changes ahead of the full launch of Arrow Lake CPUs that’s scheduled for October 24. We’ll have a full review of some of the processors then, where we’ll have independent testing of Intel’s next-gen desktop CPUs, the new socket, and the new architecture.

Arrow Lake and its Intel Core Ultra design should completely do away with the hardware issues that infamously plagued 13th and 14th Gen Intel ‘Raptor Lake’ CPUs, so at least we have that to look forward to. Of course, being a brand new platform and architecture, there plenty of potential for other problems to emerge over time.

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But getting back to the NPU drivers. Fixed Issues include Microsoft Copilot performance and accuracy improvements, along with aligning the “UD40 Driver version number.” There are also fixes specifically for Lenovo View Video enhancer,  a krisp model loading issue, and enabling and optimizing face/eye tracking and 2D/3D conversion functionalities. Lenovo View Video Enhancer, for those unfamiliar, is a component of the Lenovo View device driver (for Lenovo devices but especially AI PC-enabled ThinkPads) that provides better video call features, including quality adjustments, background concealing, and even little health warnings.

Intel has already established a regular cadence for NPU driver updates, looking at the history of releases. There’s basically a new driver revision every month, sometimes enabling new devices (like the Keem Bay video processing unit), more often just addressing a few bugs. But we’d expect NPU driver updates from Intel’s competitors to be just as important in the coming years, particularly if the AI PC features and Copilot+ really take off.