India Enterprise PCs Accelerate Refresh Ahead of Windows 10 EoS with AI-Ready Laptops

Enterprises across India are accelerating PC refresh cycles, driven by a near-term deadline and a new generation of machines built for on-device AI: demand for business laptops is surging as organizations prepare for the end of Windows 10 support on October 14, 2025 and push to acquire AI-ready notebooks that ship with integrated neural processors and other modern security features.

Background​

India’s PC market has moved from slow recovery into a coordinated growth phase in 2025, but the shape of that growth is notably different from previous cycles. Two global research houses report that consumer demand is softening or flat, while the commercial segment — enterprise, government and education — is the engine of expansion. Market trackers show a double-digit swing in enterprise orders during early 2025 and sustained commercial growth forecasts through 2026 as refresh programs and AI-readiness mandates overlap.
At the same time, Microsoft’s formal lifecycle timetable for Windows 10 is creating a hard migration calendar for IT teams: Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 10 reaches end of support on October 14, 2025, after which technical assistance and security updates cease unless organizations buy Extended Security Updates (ESU) or migrate. That single date is acting like a trigger for coordinated fleet upgrades across large IT estates, and vendors are seeing a pronounced spike in procurement tied to that timetable.
Complementing the Windows-driven refresh is a separate but related trend: the rapid rise of AI laptops — notebooks featuring dedicated neural processing units (NPUs) that accelerate machine-learning tasks on-device. Once a niche, NPUs are now mainstream in enterprise request-for-proposals (RFPs), and vendors are packaging AI features into standard commercial SKUs. The result: hybrid drivers (Windows EoS) and future-readiness drivers (AI) are creating a near-term buying window that vendors, channel partners and enterprises are actively exploiting.

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Market snapshot: growth by the numbers​

What the trackers show​

• Commercial PC shipments expanded strongly in early 2025, with quarter-on-quarter commercial growth outpacing consumer demand. Enterprise purchases, in particular, rose sharply as large organizations accelerated device refreshes.
• One major market tracker recorded overall PC growth in Q2 2025 in India and cited a 9.5% year-on-year increase in commercial PC shipments for the April–June quarter, with the enterprise segment growing more than 20% YoY in the same period.
• Another analyst forecast projects commercial PC segment growth of roughly 7.9% in 2025, rising to nearly 9.8% in 2026, reflecting the combination of Windows refresh activity and AI laptop adoption as an ongoing stimulus.

These figures make two things clear: enterprise demand is not only strong, it is outpacing consumer replacement. And while overall unit growth in the Indian market is modest compared with earlier pandemic-driven spikes, the value and mix of shipments are drifting up — premium, AI-enabled and enterprise-configured devices are a higher share of shipments than a year ago.

Verified, comparable data points​

Key quantitative claims from market trackers align: enterprise demand rose substantially in early 2025, AI-capable notebooks recorded triple-digit year-on-year percentage growth (from a small base), and premium/non-standard configurations are becoming a larger share of the commercial mix. Microsoft’s October 14, 2025 Windows 10 end-of-support date is confirmed and is being cited by procurement teams as a proximate cause for large refresh cycles.

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Why AI laptops are now central to procurement​

What makes an "AI laptop"?​

An AI laptop in 2025 means more than a faster CPU or a beefy GPU. The defining characteristic is the presence of a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) — a specialized accelerator designed to execute machine-learning inference and certain training tasks efficiently on-device. NPUs are measured in TOPS (trillions of operations per second), a marketing-friendly shorthand used to compare raw NPU throughput across designs.

• Vendors are shipping basic AI notebooks with NPUs in the ~10 TOPS range; these devices handle common, lightweight on-device features such as real-time noise reduction, local transcription and camera effects.
• Higher-tier AI machines boast NPUs in the 40 TOPS and above range; those are positioned for heavier on-device generative tasks, faster local inference, and enterprise features that Microsoft markets under its Copilot and Copilot+ PC programs.

In short: TOPS is a useful indicator, but it is not a complete performance story. Real-world AI workloads depend on software stack integration, memory bandwidth, power management and thermal headroom — not TOPS alone.

The enterprise case for on-device AI​

Enterprise IT is embracing on-device AI for several reasons:

• Latency and privacy: Running inference locally avoids round-trips to the cloud for many features — useful for offline or low-latency tasks and attractive where data residency or privacy requirements limit cloud use.
• Cost control: Reducing cloud inference volume can lower recurring costs for high-frequency features, especially at scale.
• Productivity gains: On-device AI features like smart summarization, email triage, and voice-to-text at scale can deliver measurable productivity improvements for knowledge workers.
• Security posture: Modern commercial devices bundle hardware‑backed security — TPM, firmware protections and secure boot — with AI accelerators, enabling vendors to sell a packaged value proposition to security-conscious buyers.

These forces are prompting enterprise procurement teams to specify AI-capable hardware as default in new device RFPs rather than an optional add-on.

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Technical verification: NPUs, TOPS and platform readiness​

TOPS and thresholds​

• TOPS stands for trillions of operations per second and is the metric most vendors use to describe NPU throughput. It’s widely used across chipmakers and OEMs to communicate NPU capability, though analysts caution that TOPS lacks nuance and must be viewed alongside benchmarked performance on real workloads.
• Microsoft’s higher-tier marketing for AI PCs has created de facto thresholds: many of the more advanced Copilot-related features target NPUs that deliver ≈40 TOPS or more, while entry-level AI features can function at 10 TOPS and above.
• Multiple silicon families now power AI laptops: Apple’s M-series Neural Engine, AMD’s Ryzen AI family (high-end parts exceeding 40–50 TOPS on some SKUs), Intel’s Core Ultra line (newer generations pushing NPUs into the tens of TOPS and beyond), and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite/X Plus designs (bringing ARM variants with multi‑dozen TOPS capability).

Real-world caveats​

• TOPS is a simplified marketing figure. Performance varies by model precision (INT8, FP16, BF16), memory architecture and software optimization.
• Benchmarks for specific enterprise workflows — large language model inference, speech-to-text with long-context windows, on-device vector search — are unevenly available. Enterprises should request workload-specific proofs (POCs) rather than relying on TOPS alone.

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Vendor landscape: who’s selling what, and why it matters​

Market leaders and the enterprise play​

• Traditional Windows OEMs continue to lead in enterprise volume. HP, Lenovo, Dell and Acer retain dominant commercial share because they combine wide channel reach, enterprise-grade management tooling, and existing supply contracts with large customers.
• HP in particular has retained a strong lead in India’s commercial segment; its enterprise focus and channel scale make it a default supplier for many IT services firms and Indian multinational customers.
• Lenovo and Dell continue to compete aggressively on enterprise value and custom configurations tailored to large fleets.

Apple’s rising footprint in enterprise​

• Apple’s MacBook line has become a notable growth story in India. Unit shipments and share in early 2025 rose sharply from the prior year as enterprises and Global Capability Centres (GCCs) increasingly choose M-series Macs for developer workstations and knowledge-worker fleets.
• Companies such as Zoho have publicly documented Mac-first strategies — reporting that a majority of employees prefer Macs and pointing to lower support ticket volumes and faster developer build speeds as reasons to expand Mac fleets.
• Apple’s momentum in India is assisted by aggressive promotions on older-generation Mac models and an expanding partner ecosystem that has improved macOS compatibility for enterprise SaaS and management tooling.

Channel and local manufacturing effects​

• Government policies and “Make in India” incentives are nudging OEMs toward more locally assembled models, which can influence price competitiveness and procurement choices for government tenders and large enterprise deals that favour local sourcing or price advantages.

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The procurement calculus: refreshing for Windows 11 vs extending Windows 10​

The migration options​

Enterprises facing Windows 10 end of support typically weigh three choices:

• Upgrade existing devices to Windows 11 — when hardware meets compatibility criteria (TPM 2.0, supported CPU) and IT wants to preserve assets.
• Purchase new Windows 11 / Copilot+ PCs — a capital expenditure approach that can bundle AI-ready hardware and a modern security baseline.
• Enroll in Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 10 — a stopgap that extends security patches for a fee but defers migration work and exposes the organization to eventual higher migration costs.

Most large enterprises are combining these: a significant tranche of devices gets upgraded where possible, new purchases replace end-of-life units, and a small subset enrolls in ESU to bridge timing mismatches.

Financial and operational drivers​

• Typical enterprise refresh cycles (3–3.5 years) align with the Windows 10 end-of-support window, increasing the portion of fleets eligible for replacement.
• Procurement teams now factor in software enablement (Copilot features, management automation), TCO (including reduced support tickets for some clients), and future-proofing (NPUs) when making buying decisions.
• Vendor financing, seasonal sales and localized pricing changes in India are reshaping trade-offs — older-generation premium devices (for example, discounted M1 MacBooks) are suddenly price‑competitive against new non-AI Windows laptops, distorting comparative TCO calculations.

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Strengths of the current cycle​

• Consolidated demand window: The overlap of Windows 10 EoS and AI adoption creates a concentrated buying period, which helps channel partners and OEMs plan production and supply.
• Device capability uplift: Even budget commercial laptops are being equipped with NPUs at entry-level TOPS counts, improving the baseline ability for on-device AI and bringing generative features to a wider set of users.
• Enterprise readiness: OEMs have improved management tooling and firmware security for commercial SKUs, which helps CIOs make the business case for rolling upgrades.
• Platform diversity: The market now offers a broader spectrum of architectures — x86 with Intel/AMD NPUs, ARM-based Snapdragon Windows laptops, and Apple silicon — giving enterprises options to match specific workloads.

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Risks, contradictions and open questions​

Security and support gaps after October 14, 2025​

• The end of mainstream security updates for Windows 10 is a hard security boundary. Running large numbers of unpatched devices in production significantly increases the attack surface and compliance risk for regulated industries.
• ESU programs exist, but they are temporary and often costly, and don’t mitigate other issues such as lack of new driver support or compatibility with future management paradigms.

Over-reliance on marketing metrics​

• TOPS and NPU numbers are prominently marketed, but they do not reveal software maturity, driver stability or real-world throughput on enterprise LLMs and multi-stream inference tasks.
• Procurement decisions driven by superficial TOPS comparisons risk acquiring hardware that looks powerful on paper but underwhelms when integrated with enterprise AI stacks.

Fragmentation and integration complexity​

• The arrival of multiple NPU architectures — Apple Neural Engine, AMD Ryzen AI, Intel NPUs, Qualcomm Hexagon NPUs — creates integration and testing burdens for ISVs and SRE teams.
• Enterprises that standardize on one platform may gain operational simplicity but risk vendor lock-in or missing differentiated capabilities present on competing platforms.

Supply chain and pricing volatility​

• Local manufacturing policies and global component shortages can cause price fluctuations and lead times that complicate budget cycles.
• Aggressive discounting of older premium models (especially Apple’s M-series devices) can distort procurement logic and push IT teams into mixed-OS fleets with added management overhead.

The skills gap​

• On-device AI increases operational complexity: configuring secure AI model deployment, managing model lifecycle, privacy-preserving inference and harmonizing endpoint telemetry with observability are non-trivial tasks.
• Many IT teams are still building these skill sets and will need time, training, and professional services support to manage AI-enabled fleets at scale.

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What IT leaders should be testing now (practical checklist)​

• Run targeted POCs for representative AI features (speech recognition, local summarization, secure local inference) on candidate NPUs rather than buying on TOPS alone.
• Inventory and readiness audit: identify devices that meet Windows 11 compatibility and prioritize replacements where TPM, secure boot and other hardware security features are lacking.
• Model governance and privacy: understand whether AI features run fully on-device, partially in the cloud, or as hybrid flows—each model carries different compliance requirements.
• Management and MDM support: validate that existing endpoint management tooling supports macOS at scale if a Mac expansion is being considered.
• TCO modelling: include support-ticket delta, expected cloud inference savings, training and integration costs — the lowest initial CAPEX may not yield the lowest TCO.

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What vendors and channel partners are doing​

OEMs are rapidly reconfiguring commercial portfolios to include entry-level NPUs across price points, while tiered SKUs provide more capable NPUs at premiums. Channel partners are packaging migration services (imaging, driver validation, esoteric EMM profiles) with hardware discounts to win enterprise deals. Independent software vendors and systems integrators are producing validated stacks for popular enterprise use-cases (customer service summarization, secure transcription, developer local model hosting) to lower the barrier for procurement committees.
Apple, for its part, is leaning on enterprise case studies and partner integrations to reduce friction for macOS adoption. Several large Indian SaaS firms and GCCs publicly report material operational benefits after widescale Mac adoption, including lower support volumes and faster developer workflows — claims that IT leaders should nonetheless validate in their own environments.

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Long-term implications for the India PC ecosystem​

• Device mix will tilt premium: Over time, as NPUs become normalized, the commercial fleet will contain a higher share of premium devices relative to earlier refresh cycles that emphasized low-cost endpoints.
• Enterprise software will adapt: ISVs will increasingly offer on-device AI options and hybrid flows, which will pressure enterprise licensing and data strategies.
• Local manufacturing accelerates: Policy incentives will push more OEM assembly into India, which may reduce lead times and support larger commercial volume purchases with local supply guarantees.
• Platform diversification persists: Organizations will adopt heterogeneous fleets — Windows Copilot+ PCs for standardized enterprise management, Apple Macs for developer-heavy teams, and specialized ARM laptops for low-power or mobile-first roles.

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Final assessment: opportunity and caution in equal measure​

The intersection of a mandated OS lifecycle event and the rise of AI-capable hardware has created a rare inflection point in the India PC market. For enterprises, the opportunity is significant: fleets refreshed with modern silicon, built-in NPUs and updated security baselines can unlock productivity gains, reduce certain recurring cloud costs, and improve the user experience. Vendors and channels are responding with diverse product mixes and financing options that make upgrades easier to achieve within budget cycles.
Yet the cycle also carries risk: marketing metrics such as TOPS are imperfect proxies for real-world capability, the skills and governance required to operate AI at the endpoint are still nascent inside many IT organizations, and short-term discounting is producing mixed TCO signals that could lead to fragmented estates and higher operational complexity.
The prudent path for enterprise CIOs and procurement teams is clear: move decisively, but move with evidence. Validate AI features against your actual workflows, prioritize security and manageability, and be prepared to pay attention to lifecycle, integration and support economics — because the machines you buy today will define how your business uses AI and secures data for years to come.

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Quick reference: verified facts to carry into procurement conversations​

• Windows 10 end of support date: October 14, 2025. After that date Microsoft will cease mainstream security updates unless ESU is purchased.
• Commercial PC growth: Industry trackers reported mid-2025 commercial growth with enterprise segments expanding significantly year-on-year; analysts forecast further commercial growth in 2025–2026.
• AI notebook adoption: Market research shows triple-digit percentage increases in AI-capable notebook shipments in early 2025 (from a small baseline), with basic AI notebooks (≈10 TOPS) comprising the majority of shipments in the first half of the year.
• TOPS thresholds: Entry-level AI features operate at ≈10 TOPS; more advanced Copilot+ class experiences are typically associated with devices offering ≈40 TOPS or higher, although actual feature availability depends on the full hardware‑software stack.
• Vendor dynamics: Traditional Windows OEMs lead in commercial volume; Apple is rapidly expanding share in India’s PC and tablet markets, buoyed by enterprise adoption and promotional strategies on older-generation Mac models.

These verified anchors should be the baseline of any procurement dialogue — they’re the facts that separate marketing spin from an IT team’s operational reality.
Conclusion: India’s PC surge in 2025 is about more than replacing old machines — it’s the start of a generational shift in endpoint capability. CIOs who treat this as a strategic modernization window — not just a refresh — will extract disproportionate value; those who chase headline numbers without validating architecture and governance risk buying complexity they will spend years trying to manage.

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Source: CXOToday.com Enterprise demand for AI laptops, Windows end of support drives India’s PC surge