Intel to Power Large PC Refresh Cycle with All-New Silicon-Based Security

Here’s one prediction for 2025: Millions of business PC users will be getting new laptops or desktops. This calendar year is expected to be one of the largest computer refresh cycles in recent history, even larger than 2020’s COVID-19 surge driven by remote work and learning requirements.

A trifecta of market forces has arrived:

• In October, Microsoft will end security updates and technical support for Windows 10. An estimated 450 million users have computers too old to upgrade to Windows 11, and will need new PCs to stay current with updates.
• The advent of the AI PC is driving new software and productivity tools that will lean on artificial intelligence built into work machines. PCs powered by new Intel® Core™ Ultra processors will fill many of those requirements.
• And with 2024’s massive CrowdStrike outage still fresh in mind, many organizations will upgrade to incorporate a stronger defense to debilitating attacks on their systems.

The huge refresh on the way means information technology (IT) professionals at businesses of all sizes will be looking for a platform that allows them to remotely manage a few PCs to tens of thousands of units while implementing the highest possible security and privacy.

Prepared for this perfect storm, Intel announced at CES that the most powerful AI PC processors on the market¹, Intel® Core™ Ultra 200V series processors, code-named Lunar Lake, are ready for the workplace with a brand-new Intel vPro® platform. Equipped with enhanced security and seamless manageability, Intel vPro paired with Intel Core Ultra is essential to business. It’s also Intel’s first processor with Microsoft Copilot+ PC. And more key Copilot+ features like Recall, Click to Do and Cocreator will be enabled on Intel-powered devices soon.

More: Intel at CES 2025 (Press Kit)

“One of the reasons our customers are so interested to move to Windows 11 is because it’s the most secure Windows ever, and that starts with Intel silicon,” said Jennifer Larson, general manager of Commercial Client Segments in Intel’s Client Computing Group. “IT leaders are doing everything they can to protect their business from being the next headline. Security software alone is no longer enough; silicon matters more than ever before.”

Intel first introduced the vPro platform in 2006 as part of the Core 2 Duo processor family on commercial-grade desktop computers. That initial version focused primarily on remote computer management.

“With nearly two decades of continued innovation, vPro has come an extremely long way from that 2006 moment because we’re listening to our customers and innovating to stay ahead of threats to ensure our platforms are built for business,” Larson said.

Today, Intel vPro seamlessly integrates into any enterprise system and can be scaled to hundreds or thousands of devices. The platform helps IT departments reduce on-site PC repairs by fixing and diagnosing computer problems remotely, even if a device is powered off, has a stop error blue screen or the user isn’t present².

A 2024 Intel-commissioned study with Forrester surveyed 500 customers to measure the total economic impact of having an Intel vPro platform on an enterprise system. It found up to 213% return on investment (ROI) over three years, up to a 90% reduction in hardware-related on-site visits and up to 65% less time spent on device management³.

Lessons from 2024’s CrowdStrike Outage

In July 2024, a faulty software update released by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike caused a massive domino effect, crashing an estimated 8.5 million Windows devices worldwide. Critical systems across industries including healthcare, finance, government, education and transportation went down. Many IT teams had to manually remove the corrupt file. That means they had to physically touch every computer – whether in airports or hospital surgical suites around the world – to get them back up and running. In many cases, it took days.

Intel’s vPro team knew customers were panicking. That first day, Intel engineers worked with CrowdStrike to quickly write up and send out a refresher “how-to” guide on vPro and hopped on the phone with customers to walk them through the steps to remotely log into devices and fix the outage.

Companies in the airline, insurance, medical, money management, retail and legal industries credit Intel vPro for getting them up and running in a matter of hours after the CrowdStrike outage, while their competitors were down for days.

BLG, the largest law firm in Canada, had this to say about vPro: “During the CrowdStrike event in July 2024, EMA (endpoint management assistance, or vPro) was an essential incident management tool. Once we identified the affected workstations, the support team connected remotely, resolved the issue, and eliminated or minimized user downtime. Intel EMA is a valuable tool in our support toolbox.”

Banorte, Mexico’s largest bank, was also taken down in the outage. “Thanks to the ability of Intel EMA and the Intel vPro platform to manage devices remotely, we had an immediate solution to efficiently resolve the CrowdStrike antivirus incident without the need to send technicians on-site,” said Miguel Angel Rodriguez Sanchez, Infrastructure and Client Support manager at Grupo Financiero Banorte.

The outage emphasized the need for diversified security strategies and a robust disaster recovery plan, and it highlighted the risk of relying on a single vendor for critical security solutions.

“Hearing from our customers on the success they were able to find to remediate quickly and without physically touching the device is exactly what Intel vPro was built for,” said Larson. “Those are the things we’re trying to accomplish for our customers when we deliver a built-for-business platform.”

AI PCs Built for Business

The new Intel vPro platform brings massive updates to the two most important features IT managers are looking for across their fleets of computers: security and privacy.

The updated Intel vPro platform has the most comprehensive security yet, integrated directly into the silicon hardware. Here’s why that’s a game changer:

	Built-in Security: Instead of relying solely on software to protect against threats, hardware-assisted security makes it more difficult for cyber attackers to bypass or disable protective measures.
	Efficiency: Security operations are faster compared to software-based solutions. This can help in quickly detecting and mitigating threats without significantly impacting system performance.
	Advanced Protection: Intel vPro Security can isolate sensitive operations and data to the processor, making it harder for malicious software to access them. It’s the first time a hardware-assisted security system has been validated by the MITRE ATT&CK framework, which means it’s been tested and proven to protect against over 150 real-world cyberattack techniques4.
	Flexibility: A new Intel® Partner Security Engine, a dedicated and isolated security engine, can run third-party firmware such as Microsoft Pluton to help protect sensitive data.

In earlier versions of vPro, customers needed to go through 24 steps to achieve full activation of the suite of tools. That’s now reduced to six steps, and businesses no longer need their own cloud server infrastructure.

“As we listened to customers and walked alongside them helping with their activation, we realized we had some work to do,” Larson said. “Our goal was to make activation as simple as possible so if and when another outage, such as the one in July happened, our customers are protected with our out-of-band capabilities and able to remediate without physically touching a device.”

Intel vPro launches this month with more than 10 global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, MSI and Samsung on over 30 commercial computer designs.