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By Zayden R., September 12, 2026
Intel's Linux NPU Driver 1.38 now officially supports Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, aligning with the upstream IVPU kernel accelerator driver. Engineers using Intel's Core Ultra NPU can now benefit from formal support on this Ubuntu version.
Intel has released version 1.38 of its Linux NPU Driver, finally bringing official support for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. This development is noteworthy for engineers leveraging the Core Ultra Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on Linux, as it aligns with the upstream IVPU kernel accelerator driver. Prior to this release, the driver did function on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, but lacked formal recognition from Intel, leaving some users in a gray area in terms of support.
The timing of this release is interesting, coming five months after Ubuntu 26.04 LTS's debut and just ahead of the anticipated Ubuntu 26.10 release. Intel has confirmed that platforms including Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, Panther Lake, and Wildcat Lake have all been tested on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS to ensure compatibility with the user-space NPU driver. This testing was conducted with the default Linux 7.0 kernel build, offering assurance to developers and sysadmins that the driver is reliable and ready for deployment.
For those still operating on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, rest assured that it continues to be supported by this driver stack. While this release primarily focuses on the added Ubuntu 26.04 LTS support, without other significant changes, it highlights Intel's commitment to keeping its NPU technology accessible and up-to-date with the latest Linux distributions.
Interested users can download the new user-mode driver from GitHub. This update is a solid improvement for those who have been waiting for official support to confidently integrate Intel's NPU capabilities into their systems running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS.