Intel NPU Driver for Linux is Now Available on the Snap Store

Introduction

Canonical has officially released the Intel NPU driver on the Snap Store. The new Intel NPU Driver snap bundles multiple components, including device firmware, a user space driver and compiler, and an application to validate the user mode driver and compiler.

Canonical Launches Official Linux Intel NPU Driver on Snap Store. Canonical has officially released the Intel NPU driver on the Snap Store. The new Intel NPU Driver snap bundles multiple components, including device firmware, a user space driver and compiler, and an application to validate the user mode driver and compiler.

To put it simply, this snap includes everything necessary to leverage the AI inference accelerators now built into the latest Intel Core Ultra processors ('Meteor Lake' and above).

However, there is a catch: the Intel NPU Driver snap is currently in beta, so rock-solid reliability isn't guaranteed just yet. It should be noted that supported hardware is required to make use of this driver—the snap does not install an NPU itself!

Moreover, to utilize this driver effectively, you need software, tools, and applications that can take advantage of it for AI workloads. Beyond CLI LLM/ML tools, there are already OpenVINO AI plugins for GIMP and Audacity that can leverage the Intel NPU for specific tasks. If you have the right hardware and are eager to see how things work in practice, you can easily install the Intel NPU driver on Ubuntu by opening a new Terminal window and running the following command:

sudo snap install --beta intel-npu-driver
Expect further improvements and deeper integration with snap applications in the coming months, according to the announcement.

Canonical is optimistic about Ubuntu's AI/ML capabilities, and with Ubuntu Desktop being one of the most popular platforms for developers, their enthusiasm is likely to increase as NPUs become more common in consumer-grade hardware.