Dell Technologies has announced its Mobile World Congress hardware announcements, which are a variety of new commercial PCs, AI-focused announcements, new business services and peripherals. The breadth of the new offerings is something the company thinks will be a market differentiator for them.

“What should come as no surprise is AI PCs,” said Meghana Patwardhan, Vice President, Commercial Client Products, at Dell Technologies. “Every company that wants to remain competitive will have to use AI.”

Years after many experts proclaimed that the notebook was on the verge of being replaced by the phone as the main productivity tool, Patwardhan emphasized that the PC is still at the centre of productivity.

“What is new to us is the power of local competing,” she said. “It allows a lot of work to be done on the PC. Customers tell us they want to invest in the best technology to set up their business for success – especially as we enter a major refresh cycle.”

“NPU is definitely the star of the show for us,” said Kevin Terwilliger, Vice President and General Manager, Latitude and Docking, Client Product Group at Dell, who is responsible for commercial notebooks and the new core ultra process across the whole Latitude portfolio.”

These come from the Intel Core Ultra processors with Intel vPro and the new integrated multi-processor package with central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), and neural processing unit (NPU).

Terwilliger emphasized that NPU does three core things.

“It brings new capabilities to the end user, including the ability to do instant translation,” he said. “This had been possible on the  cloud before, and now it can be done on the PC with the NPU. It also takes workload from the CPU and NPU to the GPU, which results in significant extensions of battery life. In addition, large organizations are developing new applications to NPU, which means future proofing.”

As an example, Terwilliger noted the shift from background blur in Zoom, which took around 7% of CPU for blur, can now be done at 1%.

“This means 38% power improvement,” he noted.

Terwilliger also indicated that with security apps, there is a 70% improvement in latency.

“This comes from taking advantage of having NPU on the device and not the cloud,” he said. “We can show these examples to customers, rather than just give them general AI hype.”

Terwilliger highlighted one new device in particular.

“Our most exciting device this year is the Latitude 7350,” he said. It has the  convenience of a tablet, the performance of a laptop, and a pen built in the keyboard that recharges in 30 seconds. Thermal innovations enable this dual level of performance, with there being lots of innovation around the thermals.”

Terwilliger also noted that there are new Latitudes in the 5000, 7000 and 9000 series , all of which have AI enabling them at all price points for customers. All these ship with 50% recycled cobalt in them.

Dell also announced new workstations, especially in its 3000 entry and 500 mid-range portfolios. All bring AI benefits to the workstation market.

“The 3000 is for commercial users looking for more power,” said Charlie Walker. Senior Director and GM Precision Workstations. “It’s a great entry point for those who aren’t ready for discrete CPU. The 3280 compact is the world smallest workstation, while the 3680 tower is the world’s fastest workstation for single threaded performance.

There are also improvements across the 5000 and 7000 portfolios.

“The new 5000 is thin and light and takes advantage of the NPU, with up to three hours of battery life improvements,” Walker said. “The 5000 and 7000 series desktop models, can be trained with any style, and the fusion model is fine tunable.”

Enhanced Dell Services are also a core part of the company’s hardware device Ai strategy, as they add new generative AI consulting services.

“For years, we have used AI to leverage data coming off the system with a ProSupport System, and added a telemetry dashboard to self-heal issues before they occur, Raley stated. “Now we expand that  in a way that is very exciting.”

Dell Technologies’ Digital Employee Experience Services aim to help businesses “identify GenAI use cases” and “understand which of those use cases will have the most value and which of their personas are going to get the most benefit from those technologies.”

Raley said that getting value out of Gen AI will require process changes.The Digital Employment Experience for Dell AI teaches customers how to understand the right needs, preferences and impact of GenAI for different customer types, and match them with the appropriate licenses and peripherals.

“We are moving into self healing at the fleet level – all at once,” and he emphasized that Dell Managed Services  is being refreshed.

“It’s about managing the PC to be secure when they need it, and helping better planned refreshes, including moving performance models which have become less productive for their original workers to line of business employees for whom they are still a good fit. PC management wraps around deployment and recovery services.”

The major peripherals announcement was the new WL7024 headset.

“Its new AI-based noise cancelling capabilities announce a new capability that makes it the most intelligent in the market,” said Mike Basore,  Senior Director of the Client Peripherals Product Group at Dell Technologies. “The noise cancelling microphone has another improvement on it. It cleans up your device and what’s coming into your ear, including  noises. The head bands are easy to replace for improved ergonomics, and other smart functions have been added in.”