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| Laptops running Nvidia chips might be announced as soon as next week. |
A deep dive into Ming-Chi Kuo’s latest supply chain report reveals why on-device AI might stay a niche playground for power users, while Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo quietly steals the spotlight.
When Nvidia first teased its “new era of PC” earlier this year, the tech world braced for a seismic shift. The subsequent detailed leak of the company’s upcoming N1X and N1 chips only added fuel to the fire—promising desktop-class AI performance in mobile form factors. But if you’ve been waiting for a wave of AI-powered laptops to flood every coffee shop and college library by next Christmas, you might want to temper those expectations.
According to a new supply chain analysis from the famously accurate TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, shipments for laptops powered by Nvidia’s anticipated N1X and N1 processors are projected to reach roughly 10 million units over the next two years (through 2028). That’s not nothing, but in a global PC market that ships upwards of 250 million units annually, it’s a drop in the bucket.
More importantly, Kuo cautions that these early N1X/N1 devices are being positioned as a niche offering specifically for “AI power users” —developers, researchers, and local LLM hobbyists who need serious on-device compute without shipping every query to the cloud.
“Currently, these devices are viewed as a niche offering,” Kuo writes, adding that any upward revision to those 10 million shipment forecasts will depend on two wildcards: pricing and Windows OS support.
The 10 Million Question: Will Software Catch Up to Silicon?
Let’s be clear: the N1X and N1 chips themselves sound like monsters. For power users running Large Language Models (LLMs) locally—think LLaMA 3, Mistral, or fine-tuned models that demand massive memory bandwidth and low latency—the N1 series offers a genuine alternative to Apple’s Mac ecosystem. Kuo notes that Nvidia’s edge in memory architecture and on-device processing could finally give Windows users a competitive answer to the Mac Studio and MacBook Pro.
But here’s the rub: hardware specs alone have never sold a PC platform. And Kuo is increasingly convinced that Windows might become the bottleneck.
Read Ming-Chi Kuo’s original supply chain post on X here — his full thread breaks down the shipment numbers and the OS-level hurdles that remain largely unaddressed.
Right now, the way most consumers interact with AI on both Windows and Mac is through cloud-based services. Whether you’re chatting with ChatGPT in a browser, using Copilot via a web panel, or calling an LLM API through a third-party app, the heavy lifting happens in a data center somewhere. Your shiny new N1X laptop? It’s mostly just a thin client with a very expensive neural engine sitting idle.
Kuo pulls no punches on this front: the current “AI PC” narrative has had little to no measurable impact on actual market sales or consumer interest. Instead, the most significant PC market activity in 2026 has been driven by factors that have absolutely nothing to do with AI.
Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo Is the Real Story—And It’s Not Even Close
If you want to understand what actually moves the needle for consumers, look no further than Apple. Kuo highlights the MacBook Neo—a device that, by all accounts, shouldn’t exist in Apple’s premium playbook. Yet it’s been selling like hotcakes, and the analyst has revised 2026 shipment forecasts for the model upward by roughly 100% —from 5 million to 10 million units.
What’s driving that insane growth? Two things, neither of which involve on-device AI:
- The low price ($599) combined with premium design. Apple managed to build a laptop that looks and feels expensive while pricing it aggressively against Chromebooks and entry-level Windows PCs. Consumers are voting with their wallets for build quality and affordability.
- Apple’s ecosystem lock-in. The MacBook Neo is pulling in iPhone, iPad, and AirPods users who want seamless handoff, iMessage sync, and AirDrop. The utility isn’t “AI” — it’s integration.
For a deeper look at why the MacBook Neo is reshaping the budget laptop space, check out this breakdown of its design and market impact.
The contrast couldn’t be starker. On one side, you have Nvidia pushing bleeding-edge AI silicon for a sliver of enthusiasts. On the other, Apple is shipping 10 million affordable laptops by appealing to basic human desires: price, aesthetics, and the comfort of an ecosystem that just works.
What Would Actually Trigger the On-Device AI Upgrade Cycle?
Kuo’s report isn’t pessimistic about Nvidia’s N1X/N1 hardware—he’s just realistic about what it will take to move beyond early adopters. And he lays out a clear, if challenging, path forward.
“The true ‘upgrade cycle’ for on-device AI requires more than hardware,” he writes. *“While the N1X/N1 might provide a new balance of power, memory, and portability, the primary reason for mass adoption might still be the operating system.”*
Right now, AI integration in PC operating systems is largely surface-level. You get a few Copilot features in Microsoft 365 apps. You can ask Windows to summarize a meeting transcript if you’re using the right (often paid) workflow. But there’s no deep, OS-level integration that weaves user data, local models, and cross-application workflows together while preserving privacy.
That last part—privacy—is the killer. A truly intelligent OS would need to index your local files, emails, messages, and calendar events to offer contextual assistance without sending everything to Microsoft’s or Google’s servers. Doing that securely and efficiently on-device is a monumental engineering challenge. And neither Windows nor macOS has solved it yet.
Kuo suggests that until that OS layer exists, even the most powerful N1X laptop will remain a “local LLM box for tinkerers”—not a mass-market phenomenon.
The Bottom Line: Niche Now, But Don’t Sleep on Nvidia
So where does that leave Nvidia’s “new era of PC”? The 10 million shipment forecast over two years is a solid start for a premium, specialized product line. It’s roughly on par with early-gen gaming laptops or the first wave of ARM-based Windows devices. But it’s not the kind of number that signals a platform shift.
For investors and enthusiasts watching the space, the upside lies in the potential for revisions. If Microsoft pulls off a surprise Windows 12 (or a major Copilot OS update) that genuinely leverages local AI across every app and workflow—and if Nvidia prices N1X devices competitively against the MacBook Pro—those 10 million units could become 20 or 30 million quickly.
But for now, the AI PC remains a playground for power users. The rest of the world is busy buying $599 MacBooks because they look good, work well with their phones, and don’t require a degree in prompt engineering.
Key takeaway from Ming-Chi Kuo’s analysis: Hardware is ready. The OS is not. And until that changes, don’t expect your mom to ask about NPU teraops anytime soon.
*Sources: TF International Securities supply chain report (Ming-Chi Kuo), Digitimes, Apple, Nvidia. Shipment projections are estimates as of March 2026.*
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| Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. |