AI-Capable PC Management in Endpoint Central

Endpoint Central’s Digital Employee Experience (DEX) module now enhances endpoint visibility for AI-capable PCs by detecting and reporting Neural Processing Units (NPUs) from managed endpoints using the DEX Extensions. As AI PCs become mainstream in enterprise environments, IT teams require deeper insight into AI-ready hardware to support new OS features, AI-driven applications, and evolving user workloads. This capability enables centralized discovery and monitoring of NPUs and its components available on endpoints, helping organizations effectively manage and plan their AI PC adoption.

What is an NPU and Why It Matters in Modern UEMS

A Neural Processing Unit (NPU) is a specialized hardware accelerator designed to efficiently process AI and machine-learning workloads such as image recognition, natural language processing, background noise suppression, and on-device inference. Unlike CPUs and GPUs, NPUs are optimized for low-power, high-throughput AI tasks, making them a key requirement for modern operating systems and AI-enabled enterprise applications.

From a Unified Endpoint Management and Security (UEMS) perspective, managing and tracking NPUs is becoming essential to identify AI-capable devices, validate hardware readiness for AI features, optimize performance, and ensure consistent user experience across endpoints. Fetching NPU data allows IT teams to make informed decisions on device refresh cycles, AI feature enablement, and troubleshooting performance issues related to AI workloads.

NPU Details Collected via DEX Extensions

Using the DEX Extensions, Endpoint Central fetches and displays the following NPU-related information from managed devices:

• NPU Inventory Details: Model, manufacturer, description, drive name and related details, and supported AI frameworks
• NPU Performance: Maximum processing capability measured in TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second)
• NPU Utilization: Real-time or sampled utilization percentage
• Applications Using NPU: List of applications actively leveraging the NPU, displayed as a comma-separated value

This data provides both hardware-level visibility and operational insight into how NPUs are being used on endpoints.

Steps to Fetch NPU Details Using DEX Extensions

• Create Sensor from Extensions
  • Navigate to the DEX module in Endpoint Central.
  • Click on Extensions.
  • Search for the AI-enabled PC extension and click Add.
  • The extension is now successfully added and available under Sensors.
• Deploy the Sensor to Managed Computers
  • Navigate to Deployments and click Create Deployment.
  • Provide a name for the deployment.
  • Select Type as Sensors.
  • Choose the AI-enabled PC sensor from the list.
  • Select the required target computers and click Deploy.
• View Collected NPU Details
  • Once the deployment is completed, Endpoint Central automatically collects and displays AI acceleration data—including NPU inventory, performance (TOPS), utilization, and application usage—under: Sensors → AI-enabled PC → Sensor Data

For more details on DEX Extensions, refer to the official documentation: https://www.manageengine.com/products/desktop-central/help/endpoint-analytics/extensions.html