In addition to Intel talking up [1]their Panther Lake SoC and its Xe3 integrated graphics at their Tech Tour in Arizona last week, they also hosted sessions on additional aspects of Panther Lake like the [2]IPU 7.5 for web cams and the new NPU 5 IP for AI acceleration. For those wondering, the Intel NPU 5 support under Linux is already largely squared away.

Intel's presentation on NPU 5 was catering to the Microsoft Windows Copilot + experience and all the enhancements found over NPU 5 with Lunar Lake.

[3]

While Linux wasn't mentioned, the Linux driver support is ready to go - besides still waiting on the NPU 5 firmware binaries to be published.

[4]

Going back one year already as covered on Phoronix, [5]Intel IVPU Linux kernel driver patches for NPU Gen 5 were posted and confirmed this fifth generation NPU design was for Panther Lake. That Intel NPU 5 support in the IVPU kernel driver was [6]upstreamed back in Linux 6.13 .

[7]

So as far as the kernel driver support is concerned, that's been upstream for a while but we'll see with time if there is any missing features or gaps still to address.

[8]

As mentioned there still is the NPU 5 firmware that needs to be published. Within [9]linux-firmware.git's intel/vpu directory is where the NPU firmware resides with currently having just the NPU 3 and NPU 4 binaries. Typically the firmware binaries are provided closer to the actual hardware release.

[10]

Over in user-space on Linux, the Intel NPU story isn't so compelling. The main user-space software capable of using the Intel NPU with the IVPU kernel driver is the OpenVINO AI plug-in. So if you are using OpenVINO as part of your AI workflow on Linux, you can make use of it while the user-space support outside of there is very limited... A problem also seen with the AMD Ryzen AI NPU on Linux and the various other AI/NPU accelerators out there.

[11]

But long story short, the Linux support is indeed there for Intel NPU 5 ahead of Panther Lake availability, if your software workflow is ready to make use of the Intel NPU / IVPU driver.

[12]

While on the topic of accelerators with Panther Lake, at the Intel Tech Tour I don't recall hearing any mentions at all of the IAA accelerators with Panther Lake. Linux driver patches have [13]confirmed IAA accelerators for Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake for that previously Xeon-only functionality. Presumably Intel is waiting to talk more about that closer to Panther Lake laptop availability in 2026 when they reveal SKU tables, etc.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-panther-lake

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Panther-Lake-IPU-75-Linux

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2025&image=intel_npu5_1_lrg

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2025&image=intel_npu5_2_lrg

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Panther-Lake-5th-Gen-NPU

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-PantherLake-NPU-Linux-613

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2025&image=intel_npu5_3_lrg

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2025&image=intel_npu5_4_lrg

[9] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/intel/vpu

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2025&image=intel_npu5_5_lrg

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2025&image=intel_npu5_6_lrg

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2025&image=intel_npu5_7_lrg

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-IAA-Wildcat-Lake