Microsoftjust announced that it will release NPU-optimized versions of DeepSeek-R1, allowing it to take advantage of AI-optimized hardware found in Copilot+ PCs. According to theWindows Blog, the feature will first arrive on Qualcomm Snapdragon X PCs, to be followed by Intel Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake) and other chips. The initial release will feature DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B, which an AI research team from UC Berkeley has discovered isthe smallest model that delivers correct answers, but larger models featuring 7 billion and 14 billion parameters will arrive shortly thereafter.
DeepSeek’s optimizations meant that itneeded 11x less computeversus its Western competitors, making it a great model to run on consumer devices. However, it also uses Windows Copilot Runtime so developers can use on-device DeepSeek APIs within their apps.
Furthermore, Microsoft claims that this NPU-optimized version of DeepSeek will deliver “very competitive time to first token and throughput rates, while minimally impacting battery life and consumption of PC resources.” This means that Copilot+ PC users can expect the power and performance of competing models like Meta’s Llama 3 and OpenAI’s o1 while ensuring that the devices it’s installed on still offer great battery life.
That said, DeepSeek’s availability on Copilot+ PCs is geared more toward programmers and developers instead of consumers. Perhaps Microsoft is using it to encourage them to build more apps that would take advantage of AI PCs asmany people still don’t see the need for itand market research suggests usersonly purchase these devices because they’re the only available optionnowadays.
Another thing that got us curious is Microsoft’s preferential treatment for Qualcomm Snapdragon X PCs at this time. While it launched the Copilot+ branding with these chips last July, the latest mainstream Intel and AMD laptops now also have built-in NPUs. AMD has even releasedinstructions on how users can run it on Ryzen AI CPUs and Radeon GPUs, with the company even claiming that theRTX 7900 XTX runs DeepSeek better than the RTX 4090.
Whatever the case, we’re still excited about the possibilities that DeepSeek unlocks for AI. Since it’s open source, nearly anyone can download it and run it locally, allowing others to build upon the advancements and optimizations the original model has put into place.
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
