Microsoft Shifts Surface Laptop to ARM-Based Snapdragon Chips

Microsoft's Surface Laptop 7 switches to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processors, marking its biggest CPU architecture change since moving from PowerPC to Intel x86 in the early 1990s. The 13.8-inch model uses Snapdragon X Plus; the 15-inch uses X Elite. Both include a neural processing unit designed for AI tasks. ARM-based Windows devices existed before, but this is the first built for mainstream productivity work.