Luminar Neo’s NPU-accelerated Features Show How AI Is Rapidly Transforming Creativity Apps On Windows 11

Skylum, a leading innovator in photo editing software and the company behind the award-winning AI photo editor Luminar Neo, partnered with Microsoft to demonstrate Luminar Neo taking advantage of new NPU hardware found in the Window Dev Kit 2023 and Surface Pro 9 5G – both powered by the Snapdragon® 8cx Gen 3 compute platform. At Build, Microsoft showcased Luminar Neo as an example of how AI technologies are transforming creative pursuits for creators on the Windows 11 platform.

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Luminar Neo is an advanced AI photo editor for photographers of all levels; a pioneer in its category, it is committed to making high-tech tools accessible to everyone through extensive use of AI-enhanced features.

NPUs (neural processing units) are a class of specialized hardware accelerators that can greatly speed up AI and machine learning applications. NPUs are expected to play an important role in future generations of consumer PC hardware, as more applications deliver AI-powered features to customers.

One of Luminar Neo’s most complex AI models is “Supersharp AI,” capable of rescuing out-of-focus images with impressive precision. Supersharp AI combines traditional sharpening algorithms with a generative adversarial network (GAN) that can help draw in details for natural-looking results. By harnessing the power of the Qualcomm Hexagon processor inside the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 compute platform, the Supersharp AI model calculation time on a high-resolution image was reduced from over two minutes to a mere 8.4 seconds. For creators, this impressive 60x speed boost results in a faster, more responsive app – making it easier to achieve their creative goals.

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“We are thrilled to collaborate with Microsoft and unleash the true potential of Luminar Neo on Windows 11 devices,” said Ivan Kutanin, CEO of Skylum. “The collaboration between Skylum and Microsoft brings enormous value to the creative community by providing them with a seamless photo editing experience without compromising performance. Luminar Neo puts the power of advanced editing tools in the hands of every creator regardless of skill level, enabling them to express their creativity effortlessly and get the results much faster.”

“Luminar Neo is at the forefront of an important trend – AI-powered apps help users be more productive and creative, at any skill level,” said Giorgio Sardo, Microsoft’s General Manager of Apps, Partners, and the Microsoft Store. “We’re excited to see the speed and user experience improvements the Luminar Neo team achieved by leveraging our latest NPU hardware on Windows 11. We’re also excited that Surface Pro 9 5G users can try these features in the new Arm64-native app that is available in the Microsoft Store today.”

“This Luminar Neo technology highlights how the powerful Qualcomm AI Engine can change consumers’ application experience,” said Kedar Kondap, SVP & GM, Compute & Gaming, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “We are proud to collaborate with Skylum and Microsoft to develop cutting-edge on-device AI that helps deliver seamless, intuitive image editing to Snapdragon-powered Windows users.”

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