Microsoft Unveils Project Volterra to Boost ARM App Development on Windows
Microsoft introduces Project Volterra, a dedicated ARM developer kit featuring a Snapdragon neural processing unit for local AI workloads. The initiative pairs with a new suite of native ARM tools to finally solve app compatibility issues on Windows.
Microsoft announces Project Volterra at Build 2022 as a new developer kit designed to accelerate the slow transition to ARM chips on Windows. This specialized device leverages the Snapdragon Compute Platform and features a powerful integrated neural processing unit (NPU) to help developers build applications that execute local AI-accelerated workloads.
The tech giant hopes this hardware solves the app compatibility and emulation problems that currently hold back ARM-based Windows PCs when compared to Apple's M1-powered Macs. By providing native support for popular productivity tools like Visual Studio, Windows Terminal, WSL, and VSCode, Microsoft enables developers to build, test, and debug ARM-native apps seamlessly.
Alongside the hardware, Microsoft introduces a comprehensive end-to-end ARM-native toolchain that includes full Visual Studio 2022, Visual C++, modern .NET 6, and Java support. Many of these tools arrive in the coming weeks, while Microsoft actively helps open-source projects like Python, Node, and Git natively target ARM architectures to build a stronger software ecosystem.