Asia Tech Wire (May 22) -- Shares of Taiwan's ASUS surged after Microsoft introduced its most powerful AI PC and included it in the first wave of partners.

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (2357.TW, ASUS) surged about 7% to NT$523 on Wednesday morning, a record high, with a market capitalization of NT$387.7 billion.

This comes on the heels of Microsoft's launch of its most powerful AI PC, adopting Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processors designed with the Arm architecture, and listed PC makers such as Acer Inc. (2353.TW) and ASUS as its first wave of partners.

Microsoft's new products include a more powerful AI assistant, Copilot, and new features, and set a new standard for a new generation of AI PC architecture, "Copilot+ PC."

Analysts pointed out that the launch of the new product, not only to help Acer, ASUS to seize a new wave of AI PC business opportunities, but also to break with practices of major software platforms in the past to support Intel and AMD, the two major CPU manufacturers as the main axis, to start from the Arm architecture CPU.

In addition, Morgan Stanley predicted in a report that the penetration of AI PCs in laptops will increase from about 2% this year to about 85% by 2028.

The investment bank estimates that AI PCs will initially drive a 7.5% increase in average selling prices and upgraded its ratings on Lenovo and ASUS to Overweight from Equal-weight.