Report: Windows 12 will release in June 2024, Taiwan’s PC makers think

Microsoft’s Windows 12 will launch in June of 2024, according to Taiwan media quoting the chairmen of Acer and contract manufacturer Quanta.

The Commercial Times, Taiwan’s largest financial paper, led its report about a recent medical conference by stating that Microsoft’s Windows 12 will launch in June 2024. The paper was reporting on comments made by Barry Lam, the founder and chairman of PC contract manufacturer Quanta, and by Junsheng (Jason) Chen, the chairman and chief executive of Acer.

The CT did not directly attribute the Windows date to either executive, though it said that Lam stated that Quanta would be the “first to invest in AI PCs,” a new category of PCs that Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger announced in July.

Though the definition differs slightly between companies, an AI PC is generally assumed to be a PC with a processor (such as Intel’s Meteor Lake, AMD’s Ryzen AI, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite CPU) with on-chip AI capabilities. Intel will bring PC makers together in New York on December 14 to launch AI PCs, which should then be seen more broadly at CES in Las Vegas in January.

Microsoft, of course, has already begun shipping its own AI capabilities as part of Copilot, part of Windows 11’s 2023 Update. That large-language-model currently connects to the cloud, not a local processor. It’s unclear whether Windows 12 will continue that trend, or whether the OS will be able to use local AI capabilities instead.

PC makers, however, have certainly been given roadmaps by all of the AI players, as they ready their own hardware. (Quanta, as a “white box” PC maker, makes PCs that third-party PC makers sell under their own brand names.)

What’s unclear is the certainty of the June 2024 launch date. Similar reports by the Central News Agency (the news service of the Republic of China) and DigiTimes don’t mention that specific date, though it’s largely assumed that Microsoft will launch Windows 12 next year. While Windows 11 launched on October 5, Windows 10 launched on July 29, 2015 — so there is precedent, of a sort.

“He expects that by the summer of next year, with the launch of a new generation of Windows operating system, AI PCs will also be launched, and the demand is still difficult to estimate, but it is ‘a good opportunity’ for the industry,” the CT added, using AI-powered translation services.

Microsoft representatives had not responded to a request for comment by press time.