TechPowerUp - Intel Prepares Seamless Updating of Firmware Without a Need for Reboot
 
“Intel has been working on a technology that will improve the lives of all users that have an Intel-based processor in their system. According to the recent round of patches for the Linux kernel, Intel's engineers have been working on a feature called Intel Seamless Update, which promises to bring updating of system firmware without a need to reboot. First of all, it is important to note that firmware upgrades have been stuck at requiring reboot in order to apply patches.
 
Intel has presented an idea of creating a technology that will update system firmware, such as UEFI, in the run time. That means that the system will be able to apply firmware patches, without ever needing a reboot, minimizing downtime. This is especially valuable for customers with very high service level agreements (SLAs) around downtime. An example of this would be medical server infrastructure, which has to constantly be available for access. Using this technology, systems such as these could update their firmware and be online non-stop, without maybe ever needing to reboot. The said feature is supposed to arrive in time for the launch alongside Intel "Sapphire Rapids" Xeon processors.”
 
This sounds promising particularly for the targeted clients.  It might make its way to consumer PCs in a few years.
 

rjohnson11
Updates in this way might help businesses in not having to restart their servers to apply patches.  

Particularly if you are running critical 24/7 systems.

ty_ger07
I can see security vulnerabilities being discovered related to this within the next 10 years. That's low-level stuff. Not only updating the firmware, but the scarier part, updating the running shadow copy. Who else will try to figure out how to update the running shadow copy using whatever mechanism Intel creates?

Exactly my thought.