At CES 2025, Intel let journalists into its non-public “Innovation Showcase,” the place we noticed issues like prototype next-gen laptops and giant stereo 3D handheld gaming PCs.
Whereas I used to be there, I additionally noticed a heavy steel handheld on a desk that didn’t appear totally… hooked up to its display screen. After I lifted the display screen, it got here away simply.
It felt suspiciously gentle to be a rea pill, so I flipped it over and noticed three connectors beneath:
Above it, on a shelf, was a laptop computer with a suspiciously sized chunk of plastic on the underside that seemed like an ideal match. A minute later, Intel gaming evangelist Colin Helms confirmed I used to be a prototype modular PC.
That module comprises an entire Intel Lunar Lake laptop, your entire guts of a PC. It’s mainly a reboot of Intel’s abandoned Compute Card idea, besides it is not all Intel’s doing and also you should not count on it to ship.
It’s an idea from Quanta, an organization whose identify you don’t sometimes see on the laptops and tablets they create, as a result of Quanta is an ODM (like Compal, Pegatron, Wistron, and Apple’s higher recognized iPhone provider Foxconn) that designs and manufactures {hardware} on behalf of name names.
Quanta’s calling the entire modular system the “AI8A,” and the aforementioned module at its coronary heart is the “Removable AI Core.” Helms informed me it plugs into different idea computer systems as nicely, together with an all-in-one desktop that Intel didn’t have to indicate off. And presumably, just like the Compute Card thought, you possibly can improve your laptop simply by placing a brand new new module into it.
The modular laptop computer has a lot of concept-y bells and whistles too, so many who Intel’s CES workers hadn’t even labored all of them out but.
For begins, the laptop computer has a motorized hinge, so you possibly can inform it to open and shut its personal lid; it additionally claims to supply eye-tracking that allows you to sling round multitasking home windows simply by the place you’d like them to be. It apparently comes with a mouse built-in into a hoop that you possibly can put on.
Probably the most mundane: a built-in Qi wi-fi charging pad within the palmrest, with indicator lights to indicate your battery’s remaining capability.
I couldn’t attempt any of it working, sadly, nor did I handle to ask what “AI8A” means, as a result of I mistakenly thought it stated Aiba till I checked my images carefully simply now. Nor might we hotswap the module between the hand-held and laptop computer, because the module apparently would not have a battery inside.
Once more, it is a cool computing idea automobile: it’s unlikely that this laptop will ever ship, even in a extra sensible / much less gadgety kind. Fortunately, we have begun to see some real, practical modularity in the laptop space because the loss of life of Intel’s Compute Card. Framework simply celebrated its fifth anniversary this week, and Dell took a smaller step ahead at CES with its first modular repairable USB-C port.
Pictures by Sean Hollister / The Verge
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