HP Inc. and its subsidiaries ("HP") announced fiscal 2026 first quarter net revenue of $14.4 billion, up 6.9% (up 5.2% in constant currency) from the prior-year period.
"We are pleased to report a strong first quarter, highlighted by robust growth in Personal Systems, including the continued momentum in AI PCs. Our performance reflects the strength of our portfolio and our disciplined execution of our Future of Work strategy, even as we navigate industry-wide headwinds," said Bruce Broussard, Interim CEO, HP Inc.

• First quarter GAAP diluted net earnings per share ("EPS") of $0.58, down 1.7% from the prior year period
• First quarter non-GAAP diluted net EPS of $0.81, up 9.5% from the prior year period
• First quarter net revenue of $14.4 billion, up 6.9% from the prior-year period
• First quarter net cash provided by operating activities of $383 million, free cash flow of $175 million
• First quarter returned $0.6 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends

Intel's Japan president, Makoto Ohno, made interesting remarks that this year will be a make-or-break year for AI PCs. He also mentioned that by 2026, AI PCs will account for roughly half of the unit shipments for the year. This means that out of the total unit shipments, which IDC estimates at around 260 million, about 130 million are expected to be AI PCs. This loosely defined term means that the PC comes with an NPU or other AI processing unit, allowing the system to perform some local AI processing with enough power to meet basic user needs. However, Makoto Ohno also admits that the primary reason for purchasing an AI PC may not be its AI capabilities, but rather the better battery life due to newer and more optimized silicon.

Intel Makoto OhnoIt is also predicted that by 2026, this will exceed half, with one in two computers being an AI PC. However, given the current situation, reasons for choosing an AI PC include its high performance and the long battery life provided by the use of an NPU. In other words, it is important to reflect on the fact that people are not currently purchasing an AI PC in order to use its AI-related functions.

Chinese firm M5Stack has released its new AI Pyramid series, a small-form-factor edge AI PC aimed at developers and makers working with local inference workloads that stands out with its unique pyramid shape design. The lineup consists of two variants: AI Pyramid and AI Pyramid-Pro. Both models are built around the Axera AX8850 SoC, which combines an octa-core Arm Cortex-A55 CPU running at up to 1.7 GHz with a 24 TOPS INT8 NPU. The platform targets fully local AI processing, covering use cases such as computer vision, multimodal input, and on-device model inference, without depending on cloud acceleration.

Memory configurations differ between the two versions, with the standard AI Pyramid shipping with 4 GB of LPDDR4x, while the Pro model offers 8 GB. Storage is provided by 32 GB of onboard eMMC. The AX8850 supports hardware-accelerated H.264 and H.265 encoding and decoding at resolutions up to 8K at 30 FPS, as well as up to 16 concurrent 1080p decode streams. The specs are completed with dual Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports, HDMI output, with the AI Pyramid-Pro adding HDMI input support. The device also integrates onboard audio hardware, an OLED status display, RGB lighting, and an active cooling solution. Pricing starts at $199 for the 4 GB AI Pyramid Computing Box, with the 8 GB Pro variant listed at $249 on the M5Stack website.

Data from ASUS's Future of SMB Report reveals that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly adopting the mindset, and tools, of large enterprises to stay competitive. According to the report, 88% of SMB owners in the United States believe that "thinking bigger" is essential for future growth. This shift is being driven in part by competitive pressure: among those who strongly agree, 41% say they face the most competition from larger enterprises, not just peers or start-ups.

Rather than relying solely on headcount or traditional infrastructure, SMBs are using AI-powered PCs to boost productivity and streamline decision-making. From intelligent forecasting to content creation and workflow automation, AI is now a key enabler of enterprise-level capability delivered with small business agility.

Intel Corporation today reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 financial results. "Our conviction in the essential role of CPUs in the AI era continues to grow," said Lip-Bu Tan, Intel CEO. "We delivered a solid finish to the year and made progress on our journey to build a new Intel. The introduction of our first products on Intel 18A - the most advanced process technology developed and manufactured in the United States - marks an important milestone, and we're working aggressively to grow supply to meet strong customer demand. Our priorities are clear: sharpen execution, reinvigorate engineering excellence, and fully capitalize on the vast opportunity AI presents across all of our businesses."

"We exceeded Q4 expectations across revenue, gross margin, and EPS even as we navigated industry-wide supply shortages," said David Zinsner, Intel CFO. "We expect our available supply to be at its lowest level in Q1 before improving in Q2 and beyond. Demand fundamentals across our core markets remain healthy as the rapid adoption of AI reinforces the importance of the x86 ecosystem as the world's most widely deployed high-performance compute architecture."

A fresh Qualcomm teaser trailer has dropped a major hint about Snapdragon X2 Elite chips breaking away from expected portable PC formats. The official Snapdragon YouTube channel's January 13 upload description stated: "next-gen desktops are here. Snapdragon X Series processors build on the breakthroughs that reshaped laptops—bringing speed, intelligence, and power efficiency to desktop PCs so creators, developers, and gamers can do more, faster." Eighteen seconds into Qualcomm's minute-long video, a clumsily-phrased "these flexible PCs bring what legacy desktops don't" declaration is made. Additionally, some "real life" examples are shown in the short video—where a few folks are typing away on wireless keyboards.

Presumably, these demo peripherals are linked up to generic-looking black or metallic silver compact desktop PC systems—in turn connected/wired to curved office monitors. A VideoCardz report concludes that the "next-gen desktops powered by Snapdragon X Series" trailer delivers misleading messaging, since Qualcomm has only showcased passively-cooled mini PC prototypes (in-person) at past promotional events. Most notably, red "drinks coaster" and "hockey puck"-shaped samples appeared at last September's Snapdragon Summit 2025 in Hawaii. The semantics of what qualifies as a small desktop Windows PC system can be argued over in infinitum—we hope that Qualcomm, and involved manufacturing partners, clarify matters once finalized hardware nears retail release time.

Intel has officially launched its first wave of "Panther Lake" mobile processors; as Core Ultra Series 3 products for deployment in laptops, notebooks, and mini PCs. A good chunk of the North American giant's CES 2026 presence was dedicated to their first AI PC platform built on the 18A process. A main talking point was the very best of "Panther Lake-H" integrated graphics solutions: Arc B390. Utilizing "Xe3" architecture, this 12-core iGPU will compete with older RDNA 3.5-based AMD equivalents for the foreseeable future. Looking further along Intel's Arc roadmap, the more mysterious "Xe3P" technology is expected to debut within "Nova Lake" processors. Almost a year ago, Raichu linked "Xe3P" to next-gen Arc "Celestial" dGPUs.

Throughout 2025, leaks showed this architecture popping up in upcoming "Nova Lake" desktop and mobile processors, as well as "Crescent Island" data center accelerators. Last week, Raichu weighed in with another "Xe3P" prediction—proposing a 20-25% performance uplift over vanilla "Xe3." Additionally, they reckon that Intel's next-gen 12-core integrated graphics solution—presumably present in top "Nova Lake" APUs—could take things further, performance-wise. Raichu did not make a distinction between desktop and mobile parts; instead identifying "Nova Lake" as an overall processor family in a brief social media post. Interestingly, a July 2025 "Nova Lake-S" tape out-related leak suggested an unusual hybrid setup—with next-gen desktop processors supposedly utilizing Xe4 "Druid" architecture for "media and display duties."

Today, HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) unveiled the HP EliteBoard G1a Next Gen AI PC, a CES 2026 Innovation Award Honoree and the world's first full AI PC built into a keyboard—powering the future of work with a design that moves, connects, and adapts to any workspace. To complement this evolution of the desk, HP also introduced the newest HP Series 7 Pro 4K Monitor, pushing the boundaries for visual fidelity and flawless performance for the most demanding professional users.

"Work is being redesigned in real time—where it happens, how it happens, and what tools employees need to stay productive," said Guayente Sanmartin, Senior Vice President and Division President, Commercial Systems & Displays Solutions at HP Inc. "HP's focus is to remove the friction and complexity that slows people down and turn emerging AI into a real advantage. The HP EliteBoard G1a Next Gen AI PC does exactly that by delivering next-generation local AI power in a keyboard-sized form factor that moves at the speed of modern work."

Micron Technology today announced the Micron 3610 NVMe SSD, the industry's first PCIe Gen 5 G9 QLC SSD for client computing - a breakthrough that redefines what's possible in performance, efficiency and capacity for mainstream PCs and ultra-thin laptops. Built on Micron's proven G9 NAND, the 3610 SSD achieves up to 11,000 MB/s sequential read speeds and 9,300 MB/s sequential write speeds. It offers the world's only 4 TB capacity in a compact single-sided M.2 2230 form factor, ideal for ultra-thin laptops and AI-capable devices. This innovation combines industry-leading Gen 5 speed with QLC economics, delivering next-level responsiveness without compromising battery life.

"The 3610 SSD combines cutting-edge PCIe Gen 5 technology, Micron's most-advanced G9 QLC NAND and a sleek, single-sided design to deliver premium performance, capacity and power efficiency," said Mark Montierth, senior vice president and general manager of Micron's Mobile and Client Business Unit. "The 3610 will enable ultra-thin devices that meet the growing demands of on-device AI, immersive streaming and performance-intensive workloads."

2025 marked a breakout year for AI development on PC. PC-class small language models (SLMs) improved accuracy by nearly 2x over 2024, dramatically closing the gap with frontier cloud-based large language models (LLMs). AI PC developer tools including Ollama, ComfyUI, llama.cpp and Unsloth have matured, their popularity has doubled year over year and the number of users downloading PC-class models grew tenfold from 2024.

These developments are paving the way for generative AI to gain widespread adoption among everyday PC creators, gamers and productivity users this year. At CES this week, NVIDIA has announced a wave of AI upgrades for GeForce RTX, NVIDIA RTX PRO and NVIDIA DGX Spark devices that unlock the performance and memory needed for developers to deploy generative AI on PC.

GIGABYTE, the world's leading computer brand, unveils an expanded AI PC vision with a redesigned GiMATE Interface and a new generation of AI gaming laptops at CES 2026. Built for clearer navigation and faster decision-making, the updated GiMATE experience brings real-time system insights and intuitive, voice-driven control into one streamlined hub, advancing GIGABYTE's commitment to truly adaptive, user-centric AI computing across its laptop lineup.

As GiMATE, GIGABYTE's exclusive AI agent for seamless hardware and software control, evolves, so does the ecosystem behind it, delivering smarter control for power, productivity, and creativity. The newly introduced AI Power Gear III enhances efficiency and flexibility with direct MUX switching between Discrete Mode and MSHybrid through GiMATE. It also brings smarter power behavior, the Auto Mode disables the GPU on battery to maximize runtime, the Optimus Mode delivers smoother, balanced performance, while the Eco Mode provides extreme power saving on AC power and battery. For creators and builders, GiMATE Creator expands its generative capabilities with the addition of Qwen-Image, supporting both English and Chinese prompts to bring powerful visual AI to users worldwide. Meanwhile, GiMATE Coder lowers the barrier to development by enabling natural-language code generation, correction, and optimization, making coding more accessible for beginners while accelerating iteration for experienced users.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI), a Total IT Solution Provider for AI/ML, HPC, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, will showcase its latest high-performance Super AI Station in Las Vegas, Nevada. Designed for AI developers, start-ups, and higher education and research professionals, Supermicro's new portfolio of products brings the latest innovation and performance to the desktop, edge, and consumer markets.

"The consumer technology landscape is evolving faster than ever, driven by breakthroughs in consumer-focused AI applications," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "Supermicro introduces the latest innovations that deliver unprecedented performance and energy efficiency, empowering the next generation of users including creators and developers."

As Lexar celebrates its 30th anniversary, the brand reflects on three decades of innovation, engineering excellence, and trusted performance. Since 1996, Lexar has evolved from a pioneer in memory card standards into a global brand shaping the workflows of creators, gamers, professionals, and next-generation smart devices. Building on this foundation, Lexar enters 2026 with a clear focus: continuing to meet evolving user needs while preparing for a future shaped by AI-enabled workflows, mobility, and real-time data.

Value Leadership-30 Years of Innovation, Reliability, and User-Centric Product Design
For 30 years, Lexar has built its reputation on three core values-Professionalism, Innovation, and Service-delivering storage solutions that evolve with the needs of photographers, filmmakers, gamers, and mobile creators.

Today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2026), Sandisk announced Sandisk Optimus as the new name for its renowned internal SSD lineup for gamers, creators, and professionals. The new branding for this family of products reflects a focus on performance leadership, engineering excellence, and a heritage of trust in flash memory. The powerful collection of Sandisk Optimus internal storage solutions, encompasses three product lines: Sandisk Optimus, Sandisk Optimus GX, and Sandisk Optimus GX PRO.

Featuring a striking new packaging and product design inspired by the company's innovation and iconic branding, the introduction of Sandisk Optimus creates room for future growth as the company expands its offerings to support the needs of gamers, creators, and professionals. The new design is inspired by the company's pioneering brand heritage and relentless focus on delivering innovation that delights end users. While the overall look and feel of the Sandisk Optimus brand is boldly different, its product portfolio carries forward Sandisk's long-standing reputation for superior quality and reliability, characteristics that have shaped the company's longstanding legacy of flash innovation.

Global leader in memory modules and flash storage, ADATA Technology Co., Ltd. will present its latest breakthroughs at CES 2026, under the theme "Advancing Innovation." Marking its upcoming 25th anniversary, ADATA will showcase its latest innovations alongside its enterprise storage brand TRUSTA, industrial solutions leader ADATA Industrial, and gaming brand XPG.

The exhibition centers on three key zones: AI Innovation, Smart Living, and Gaming Lifestyle. The AI Innovation Zone showcases innovative hybrid storage and memory solutions, intelligent management software for edge computing, and Gen 5 SSDs for AI PCs, demonstrating significant achievements in AI integration. The Everyday Innovation Zone features the industry's first 4-RANK DDR5 CUDIMM memory, sustainable DDR5 memory, external SSDs equipped with USB4 and NFC technology, and embedded storage solutions. In the Gaming Lifestyle Zone, XPG will spotlight its innovative thermal solutions, establishing a high-performance gaming ecosystem with a comprehensive new product lineup. Simultaneously, an online exhibition will launch on January 6, inviting global audiences to witness groundbreaking AI innovations and smart application capabilities.

ASUS announced the upcoming Always Incredible virtual launch event at CES 2026, where the company will unveil the latest portfolio of AI PCs. Streaming globally on January 6, 2026, at 09:00 PST (17:00 GMT) via the ASUS event site, the showcase will demonstrate how ASUS's vision of Ubiquitous AI. Incredible Possibilities is shaping the future of intelligent computing and redefining user experiences across work, creativity, and daily life.

AI Designed for Real-World Impact
ASUS is committed to enhancing everyday life through AI. The company will unveil a comprehensive AI ecosystem designed to deliver intelligent assistance across its portfolio of Copilot+ PCs, lightweight laptops, and creator solutions. This is brought to life through two key initiatives: Everyday AI, which enhances daily convenience and connectivity, and Creator AI, which provides advanced tools to accelerate creative workflows.

Since their debut in 2023, AI PCs have taken the market by storm. Gartner projects that 77 million AI PCs will ship in 2025, representing 31% of the worldwide PC market, and growing to a 55% market share in 2026. Meanwhile, edge AI is multiplying due to a variety of factors, including smaller and more efficient AI algorithms, more powerful AI silicon, and the proliferation of IoT devices.

As laptops, AI PCs, and the latest imaging systems demand even higher performance and lower power, SoCs are challenged to keep pace. Advanced-node SoCs at 5 nm and below must balance efficiency with ultra-low voltages and growing bandwidth needs. High-resolution cameras, faster frame rates, and AI-driven workloads all require interfaces that deliver speed with minimal EMI/RFI noise.

Tata Group, a global enterprise headquartered in India and Intel Corporation announced a strategic alliance to explore a collaboration focused on consumer and enterprise hardware enablement, and semiconductor and systems manufacturing to support India's domestic semiconductor ecosystem. This collaboration marks a pivotal step towards developing India-based geo-resilient electronics and semiconductor supply chain.

As part of the Memorandum of Understanding ("MoU"), Intel and Tata intend to explore manufacturing and packaging of Intel products for local markets at Tata Electronics' upcoming Fab and OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) facilities, as well as a collaboration for advanced packaging in India. In addition, Intel and Tata intend to explore the opportunity to rapidly scale tailored AI PC solutions for consumer and enterprise markets in India, which is projected to be a global top five market by 2030. This collaboration would leverage Intel's AI compute reference designs, Tata Electronics' industry-leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) capabilities, and broad access to the Indian market through Tata Group companies.

MetaComputing, a Switzerland-based innovator founded in 2024, today announced its latest breakthrough in intelligent computing—the MetaComputig AI PC with Framework Laptop 13, developed in collaboration with CIX Technology. This product marks a major step toward bringing powerful, energy-efficient AI performance to consumer desktops, designed to blend artificial intelligence with open computing seamlessly.

The launch of the AI PC marks a major milestone for MetaComputing, showcasing its latest innovation. Powered by the CIX Technology CP8180 SoC, the new AI PC delivers up to 45 TOPS of AI performance, built on advanced 6 nm process technology. It features a 12-core Arm CPU (Cortex-A720 and Cortex-A520) clocked up to 2.6 GHz, and a 10-core Mali GPU, ensuring powerful multitasking and AI acceleration in a compact, power-efficient design.

Last month, ASUS started a teaser campaign that alluded to a brand-new ROG Mini motherboard design. Promo material provided a very pixellated preview of a pale Mini-ITX form factor product. Earlier this week, a single render leaked out—image quality was good enough to identify the unreleased SKU as a white spin-off of the already launched Strix B850-I Gaming WiFi7 board design. At some point within the past couple of days, the main ASUS web presence was updated with a dedicated "W" model product page. We suspect that their next move will be the publication of press material, unless staffers deem this SKU's slight redecoration unworthy of such attention. Annoyingly, the White Edition's detailed web portal does not provide a clear view of the board's back section.

Unsurprisingly, the Taiwanese manufacturer has rolled out the standard black variant's exact same description and specs: "(our latest model) integrates cutting-edge technology into a sleek Mini-ITX form factor. It features PCIe 5.0 slots for graphics and storage, dual-channel DDR5 slots and robust power delivery for top-tier gaming and heavy workloads. Meanwhile, advanced cooling solutions maintain peak performance, and Wi-Fi 7 ensures ultra-fast connectivity. This platform delivers the power and connectivity that advanced AI PC applications demand." One major difference, at least on digital paper, is the White Edition's deployment of a "64 MB BIOS." The larger ASUS BIOS chip is advertised as offering a "more powerful interface" and "support for future AM5 processors."

Intel was presenting at 2025 UBS Global Technology and AI Conference, revealing interesting details about the demand for its "Lunar Lake" and "Arrow Lake" processors. On the question from one of the analysts that some assume Intel isn't selling its new products and there is no demand, Intel's John Pitzer answered "Quite frankly, if we had more Granite wafers, we'd be selling more Granite. If we had more Lunar Lake wafers, we'd be selling more Lunar Lake. If we had more Arrow Lake wafers, we'd be selling more Arrow Lake. And so I think we feel pretty good about where we are in the AI PC transition. And we feel very good about where we are in the initial phase of the Granite ramp, which is our latest generation server part."

This puts an end to the speculation that Intel's products aren't selling well, and the recent Q3 revenue figure of $13.7 billion matches that. Additionally, Intel made comments about its internal and external manufacturing capacity. Intel's "Lunar Lake" and "Arrow Lake" are SoCs that are fully outsourced to TSMC, with Intel performing the packaging. Hence, Intel's limited capacity booked at TSMC is not enough to satisfy the demand. However, starting with "Panther Lake," the wafer supply is getting back in-house as 18A yields mature. All the "Panther Lake" logic dies will be manufactured in-house, compared to 0% of logic dies manufactured in-house for "Arrow Lake" and "Lunar Lake."

When Microsoft's beloved Windows 10 reached its end-of-life on October 14, it created an opportunity for Windows 11 to take center stage in PC sales. However, according to Dell, one of the largest PC manufacturers, the transition has been slower than expected. During a recent Q3 earnings call, COO Jeffrey Clarke remarked, "We have not completed the Windows 11 transition. In fact, if you were to look at it relative to the previous OS end of support, we are 10-12 points behind where we were with the previous generation." This indicates that PC industry sales have been relatively stagnant, and clients aren't updating their PCs as much as anticipated.

When Windows 10 reached its end of life, approximately 500 million PCs were unable to upgrade to Windows 11. At the same time, Extended Security Updates (ESU) are intended to ease the transition, not serve as a permanent solution. Through Microsoft's ESU program, eligible machines can continue to receive critical and important security patches for a limited time after support ends. Enrollment rules, pricing, and eligibility vary by region and whether the user is a consumer or an organization, and the program excludes new features and non-security fixes. According to Dell's COO, about 500 million additional PCs can transition to Windows 11 without needing a hardware update.

Intel's next-generation "Nova Lake" desktop processor generation will arrive with a 6th-generation Neural Processing Unit (NPU) design. However, we now have preliminary performance details about it thanks to a well-known hardware leaker @jaykihn0 on X. The latest leak indicates that the "Nova Lake-S" desktop configuration will carry an NPU on one of its tiles that deliver 74 TOPS of INT8 performance, which is significantly higher than anything Intel previously shipped in its desktop segment. As of now, Intel ships NPU 3 with "Arrow Lake-S," which came out in 2023 with "Meteor Lake" and offers 11.5 INT8 TOPS. Intel's current highest-performing NPU is the NPU 5 scheduled for "Panther Lake" in early 2026, which will carry up to 50 TOPS for Copilot+ AI PCs.

Intel's decision to upgrade the NPU IP with "Nova Lake" has been known since late last month, when compiler patches confirmed the inclusion of a new NPU 6 in the next-generation desktop chips. However, the exact performance target was unclear until now. Since Intel is enhancing its NPU IP on the same microarchitecture, we can expect the NPU in Nova Lake to have a larger TOPS budget while maintaining software compatibility. This is excellent news for software that incorporated NPU acceleration in previous generations, as the performance improvements will be seamlessly integrated.

GMKtec has previewed the EVO-T2, its next compact mini-PC and the first system the company has shown built around Intel's upcoming Panther Lake platform. The system was shown at Intel's 2025 Technology Innovation and Industry Ecology Conference in China and is planned for release in early 2026. The EVO-T2 is based on the "Panther Lake H 12Xe3" mobile processor, which GMKtec lists as an Intel 18A part with a configurable TDP of up to 80 W. The chip carries 12 Xe3 GPU cores, likely the same Arc B390-class iGPU used in other high-end Panther Lake laptop parts and is rated for up to 180 TOPS of combined AI compute. GMKtec also mentions that the system will ship with Intel's "AI PC" software stack preinstalled. Memory support goes up to 128 GB of LPDDR5X running at 10,677 MT/s. Storage is handled by two M.2 slots: one PCIe 5.0 and one PCIe 4.0, with a stated maximum of 16 TB across both drives.

Up front, the system includes three USB-A ports, one USB-C port, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. Full rear-I/O details and final pricing are still pending. The EVO-T2 follows the EVO-T1 launched earlier this year, which shipped with a Core Ultra 9 285H and multiple SSD options including OCuLink and USB4 for external GPUs. The T2 effectively replaces it as GMKtec's high-end Intel offering and moves the lineup into Intel's next-gen architecture. GMKtec says more information, including final specs and launch date will be announced in Q1 2026.

Lenovo Group Limited (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY), together with its subsidiaries ('the Group'), today reported record results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025/26, with overall group revenue reaching an all-time high of US$20.5 billion, up 15% year-on-year. Adjusted net income grew 25% year-on-year to US$512 million, and adjusted net income margin expanded to 2.5%, driven by higher revenues. Together, these reflect the strength of the Group's operational performance as they exclude the impact of non-cash fair value loss on warrants, notional interest on convertible bonds, and other non-cash items.

The Group delivered double-digit year-on-year revenue growth across all main business groups and sales geographies. The AI-related revenue mix increased by 13 percentage points year-on-year, accounting for 30% of the Group's total revenue this quarter. The growth was driven by high-double-digit revenue growth in AI Servers and triple-digit revenue growth in AI PCs, AI smartphones, and AI Services.