Intel Panther Lake “Core Ultra 300” CPUs To Pack Next-Gen NPU5 Architecture, Brings Enhanced AI Performance & Capabilities

Intel's next-gen Panther Lake "Core Ultra 300" CPUs are set to feature a revamped NPU architecture known as NPU5.

Intel Is Expected To Go All-Out When It Comes To AI Performance Of Its Panther Lake "Core Ultra 300" SoCs, Featuring Next-gen NPU5 AI Core

NPU, or Neural Processing Units, have taken the AI markets by storm, especially due to their integration into processors such as Intel's Meteor Lake CPUs.

Related Story Big Amazon Prime Deal Discounts On Intel Meteor Lake Laptops: $300 Off On Predator Triton Neo 16 With RTX 4070, Swift Go Under $800

Through this tile, Team Blue managed to bring in immense AI compute power onboard through processors, eventually making edge AI possible in all compatible devices. Now, it looks like Intel is planning to take things forward, and it is now being reported by Phoronix that initial Linux patches reveal that Team Blue's upcoming "Panther Lake" SoCs are set to feature new 5th Gen NPUs also labeled as NPU5.

Interestingly, the patches don't mention much about the performance we should expect out of the 5th-generation NPUs, but it is said that initial "NPU5" support will only take a few lines of code since the driver code paths are pretty much similar to what previous-gen NPUs came with. The current generation of NPUs from Intel features vastly different performance with Meteor Lake's NPU3 offering 11.5 TOPs while Lunar Lake's NPU4 offers 48 TOPs of peak AI compute.

Given that we saw phenomenal generation gains within NPU3 and NPU4, it is expected that Intel will deliver big with Panther Lake and its AI capabilities, given that the "AI PC" hype has now become mainstream and pivotal for CPU manufacturers.

For a quick rundown on Panther Lake, the "Core Ultra 300" SKUs are set to feature Cougar Cove P-Cores and Skymont E-Cores, and for the onboard iGPU, it will likely feature the third major Xe architecture update in the form of Xe3 which is codenamed Celestial, the successor to Battlemage. Based on previous rumors, here's what Panther