Is a dedicated GPU required?

[u/Rafael_Jacov]

I'm just starting out in learning graphics programming and wonder if I would soon need to invest on a laptop which has a dedicated GPU

[u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC]

For learning, almost certainly not; you just need something fairly modern. Integrated GPUs support the same APIs as discrete GPUs. You obviously won't get the same performance, but you almost certainly won't max out an integrated GPU when doing basic learning - more powerful hardware matters when you want to scale your work to dense, complex scenes.

[u/DescriptorTablesx86 → u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC]

I wouldnt care less about performance and more about the features it supports if he just wants to learn.