When Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon Platform launched earlier this year, they brought incredible performance and breakthrough battery life to the computer experience. 

But beyond the speed and battery boost, we said that the neural processing unit (NPU), which serves as the muscle behind the Copilot+ PC’s artificial intelligence (AI) computing, would be the real gamechanger, boosting speed, battery life, privacy and enabling new features.  

Today at Snapdragon Summit, you’re seeing more of the benefits of having a dedicated NPU. Apps such as Blender, Affinity Photo 2 and Capture One — all of which are critical tools for creators — will get new AI-powered capabilities that were announced at the event today. Thanks to your favorite apps adding enhanced CPU optimization and AI neural networks running on the Snapdragon NPU, the following apps will help creators get work done faster with new creative AI tools.

Blender lets you render 3D images with a few words

Starting today, Qualcomm Technologies is a member of The Blender Foundation, contributing significant engineering resources to make this popular free-to-use 3D modeling software better than ever. Blender is a tool used to create animated movies, 3D effects and CGI hero videos and now, it has native CPU support on Snapdragon enhancing performance and battery life which you can download today.

Additionally, we created an NPU-powered feature which is available as a free plug-in to download right now on Github. With our free NPU plugin you can: 

• simulate rendering on the NPU using a neural network at warp speed and
• reduce the time it takes to enhance your early 3D object file into a higher-quality 2D image with text-to-image AI.  

For instance, you can take a rendering of our Snapdragon logo on a corporate background and give it a Hawaiian twist by simply typing a few words, as shown in the video above. As a result, work that used to take hours now takes seconds thanks to the Snapdragon NPU. 

NPU-powered object selection with Affinity Photo 2

Having launched the entire Affinity Suite optimized for Windows on Snapdragon in May, Affinity Photo 2 users are already experiencing amazing results. The Affinity Photo 2 app is used by millions of creators to edit and retouch photos, as well as create multi-layered masterpiece raster paintings.

App features like Object Selection and Subject Selection are now powered by AI neural networks running on the Snapdragon NPU, allowing you to quickly select objects and adjust their color or tint faster than ever, as shown in the demo above. Affinity’s new NPU-powered Object Selection and Subject Selection features are currently in beta in the Affinity Photo 2 app, with the final release coming soon.

Capture One makes sophisticated color grading a snap

Used by the world’s top eCommerce companies, Capture One is the ultimate photo software for pro photographers who shoot in-studio and need to make professional edits in real-time. Running natively on Snapdragon and using Microsoft’s new DirectML driver for Snapdragon NPU, Capture One benefits from faster performance and longer battery life. This means that pro photographers can shoot in-studio and get near-final results faster, saving time and producing breathtaking images quickly thanks to these new NPU-powered features: 

• AI cropping: Using neural networks running on the Snapdragon NPU, you can apply a consistent crop to batch photos so subjects have the same amount of head room for a consistent feel.
• AI-assisted color grading: Using neural networks running on the Snapdragon NPU, you can instantly match the style or edits of a reference image applied to a batch of photos.

Isolate vocals and instruments in any audio with Moises

Moises is now used by 50 million producers and musicians to revolutionize the way that they create and practice new songs. Simply drag any audio or video into their web or mobile app, and it’s uploaded to their cloud-based AI service to isolate vocals and instruments with state-of-the-art quality. You can then edit, sing along or play along. Moises’ AI even detects the chords and can shift the pitch, allowing you to play along in a different key.

Today at Snapdragon Summit, Moises showcased a preview version of the app optimized for Snapdragon and its NPU — now all of Moises AI neural networks are running locally for faster performance and new experiences. This enables Moises to run their instrument and vocal isolation in real-time, and for any audio in Windows. 

Now local and streaming videos, music, movies, video calls and more can be enhanced with Moises vocal and instrument isolation. The Snapdragon NPU provides the breakthrough speed to be able to run the AI neural networks in real-time. Compared to the CPU, the Snapdragon NPU ran the neural networks 35 times faster, delivering the speed required for real-time audio instrument and vocal isolation.

Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) apps arrive on Snapdragon

As AI becomes more important for audio cleanup, mixing and remixing, reverb removal and more, we want to make Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon the perfect tool for musicians to record and perform, and the place for music app developers to innovate on the NPU. Windows on Snapdragon devices will be ideal for podcasters, streamers and especially musicians. Two groundbreaking advancements are marking this a reality:

• Best-in-class MIDI support for electronic instruments: Windows on Snapdragon is getting best-in-class MIDI support for electronic keyboards, drums, synthesizers and more. Microsoft has rewritten their MIDI stack from the ground up, fully supporting the new high-resolution and low-latency MIDI 2.0 standard, greatly improving performance for MIDI 1.0, adding multi-client and virtual device support, adding a new USB class driver and much more. The new MIDI stack is fully supported on Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon.
• Low-latency audio for USB Audio Interfaces via with a native ASIO Driver: USB Audio devices are essential for musicians, podcasters, streamers and video editors to input and output sound on a PC, offering large amounts of high-fidelity, low-latency IO — critical for guitarists, singers and others. Traditionally, manufacturers created device-specific ASIO audio drivers, requiring a cumbersome setup. But Microsoft is now changing this by collaborating with Qualcomm Technologies and Yamaha to develop a new low-latency native ASIO driver for USB Audio Class 2 devices in Windows. Simply plug in your USB Audio Interface, and you’ll be ready to capture and record from a microphone or musical instrument.

These two new features lay an amazing foundation for advancing the software musicians need to enable critical features on Windows PCs powered by Snapdragon. Cubase and Nuendo by Steinberg are powerful professional DAW apps for audio editing and arranging used by Hollywood blockbuster composers, Billboard Hot 100 producers and audio post-production for films, TV and game studios worldwide. And this week, these apps arrive in preview with native support for Snapdragon X Series, unlocking a host of new efficiencies for those who use it. 

Cubase, for example, allows musicians to create masterpieces and even features an entire suite of digital re-creations of amps and effects for guitars, as seen in the demo below. Another top DAW, Cockos Reaper, is available today in preview for Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon, and the popular Reason from Reason Studios will release a version that’s native on Snapdragon early next year.

Focusrite and Steinberg now optimized for Snapdragon Copilot+ PCs

Soon Focusrite and Steinberg will also make drivers available for their USB Audio interfaces, to deliver optimized support for Copilot+PCs powered by Snapdragon. It’s an example of how developers can create highly optimized hardware-specific drivers for Copilot+ PCs. These drivers let you plug instruments into the audio devices, allowing you to record and produce your tracks on the PC.

New LLM developer tools on the Snapdragon NPU

This year, many popular LLM development apps including LM Studio, OLLAMA, Automatic1111 and Private LLM added support for the powerful Qualcomm Oryon CPU found in Snapdragon X Series platforms. These tools can now run LLMs to deliver higher performance and longer battery life by integrating them into apps faster than ever. 

Laptops powered by Snapdragon stay cooler and deliver faster performance on battery

As more apps use neural networks running on the NPU, sustained performance is the key to maintaining speed and delivering a great experience — no one wants their laptop to heat up as its performance gets throttled down.

This thermal map illustrates the Snapdragon NPU performance on a laptop powered by Snapdragon X Elite after running the Procyon AI Benchmark back-to-back five times in a row while running on battery.¹ Snapdragon X Elite experiences up to 20% faster inferencing and up to 7° C lower surface temperature than the Intel Core Ultra 7 during NPU AI workloads. So whether you’re editing your latest shoot on-the-go or creating your next musical masterpiece, doing so on a laptop powered by Snapdragon is essential to keeping up with your creativity.