It's been six years since Microsoft and Qualcomm first announced Windows on Arm in 2016, but until recently, the plan had been moving very slowly. It wasn't until last year with Windows 11 that app support was finally added, so users could have the same experience between Arm and Intel computers . And now, Microsoft is announcing another milestone, an Arm-native toolchain for Windows, including an ARM64 version of Visual Studio 2022.
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Microsoft also announced Project Volterra, a new Snapdragon- that helps developers explore artificial intelligence scenarios.
It seems that Microsoft is really starting to take Windows on Arm development seriously. When the platform, it was slow to have a proper ARM64 SDK for developers, except for UWP apps, which are usually compiled for all supported platforms.
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But now, they'll get the full development stack on Arm, which means not just a native version of Visual Studio 2022, but things like .NET 6, the classic .NET Framework, Windows Terminal, VC++m , and more. The company says it's working on supporting Open JDK, Python, LL VM, Node, and Git. Microsoft says the first previews will be available in the coming weeks, and that includes Visual Studio 2022.
Project Volterra is a new Snapdragon-powered development box that Microsoft hasn't said much about. At least right now, there's no information on its specifications, when it'll be released, or how much it'll cost.
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What Microsoft said is that it's designed so that developers can "explore a wide range of AI scenarios" using the Qualcomm Neural Processing SDK, which was also announced today. Indeed, the plan is to build support for Neural Processing Units into Windows.
There's also a new cross-platform development platform for building AI called Hyvrid Loop, which will run on the Onnx Runtime and Azure ML. Microsoft pointed out that Project Volterra has a neural processing unit, so it will be great for using the Hybrid Loop pattern.
