Huawei is baking AI into its next mobile chip to outperform iPhones

Huawei is baking AI into its next mobile chip to outperform iPhones
Credit: Huawei


The next handset from the #3 phone maker on the planet will come with the company’s own Kirin 970 chipset, which will feature AI processing capabilities, making it the first-ever Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for smartphones.

That should make for better sensing abilities on board the device, instead of having to rely on AI in the cloud to understand what to do with all the data your phone collects about your location and activity.

Speaking to Reuters at the IFA expo in Berlin, Huawei’s chief of consumer products Richard Yu said:

Compared with Samsung and Apple, we have advantages. Users are in for much faster (feature) performance, longer battery life and more compact design.

This isn’t the first time Yu has promised to outdo Apple. Back in July, he promised that the Mate 10 would last longer, charge faster, and take better pictures than what Cupertino would produce this year.

Huawei also claims the new 10nm Kirin 970 chip will allow for 50 percent longer battery life on phones.

Those are fighting words, and it’ll be interesting to see if Huawei can really walk the walk. It’s slated to launch the successor to its powerful Mate 9 from 2016 in mid-October, and it’ll likely come to the US too, with Amazon Alexa on board.

Here’s to a grand showdown between these titans of the phone world later this year.

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