Another driver to keep current? Intel's NPUs get monthly updates, latest adds Arrow Lake S support

Why it matters: Whether you actually need an NPU is a debate for another day. But if you splurged on an AI PC, the reality is that your device now features an extra piece of silicon you need to keep up to date, which means regular driver updates just like your CPU and GPU.

Intel dropped a new NPU driver package on October 11, bringing it to version 32.0.100.3053. This monthly update is pretty minor, mainly adding support for the company's upcoming Arrow Lake processors set to launch on October 24. It also add support for the latest 2024.4 release of OpenVINO, a powerful deep learning toolkit.

The driver notes also give us a glimpse of some of the AI-accelerated features Intel's NPUs enable. There are fixes for the performance and accuracy of Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant, which is baked into Windows 11 on AI PCs. It also resolves issues with Lenovo's "View Video Enhancer," which provides AI-powered webcam enhancements like background blur and video quality improvements. Other fixes cover eye/face tracking for AR applications and 2D to 3D video conversion.

The update cadence here is notable – Intel has settled into a pattern of pushing out new NPU drivers on a monthly basis. While they're mostly minor and focus on bug fixes, there's also the occasional support for new hardware.

That said, if you're still rocking an older Windows 10 machine with an Intel NPU, the chipmaker recommends just disabling it in your BIOS. While it's not explicitly clear what could go wrong, leaving an NPU enabled but essentially unusable is just asking for instability or potential security holes down the road.

Monthly driver drops hopefully mean smoother operation as the AI software ecosystem continues evolving. But it's also one more item on the endless list of things to keep updated. Maybe it's not as critical as GPU drivers for gaming, but if you rely on Copilot heavily on a daily basis for whatever reason, you'll want to stay on top of those NPU updates for an optimal experience.

Most PCs should grab the new NPU driver automatically through Windows Update, just like they do for other drivers. But if that doesn't happen for some reason, you can manually download the zip file from Intel's site and install it through the Device Manager.