Huawei, one of the world's leading multinational telecommunications company, just gave one of the most impressive keynotes at the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (IFA), which is the world's biggest technology trade show. The company unveiled their first flagship system on a chip (SoC), dubbed the Kirin 970, which is set with built-in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that allow mobile devices to perform faster and most advanced.
"As we look to the future of smartphones, we're at the threshold of an exciting new era. Mobile AI = On-Device AI + Cloud AI," said CEO Richard Yu of Huawei Consumer Business Group in a press release.
"HUAWEI is committed to developing smart devices into intelligent devices by building end-to-end capabilities that support coordinated development of chips, devices, and the cloud. The ultimate goal is to provide a significantly better user experience. The Kirin 970 is the first in a series of new advances that will bring powerful AI features to our devices and take them beyond the competition," continued Yu.
Huawei expects the Kirin 970 to pave the way for the future of mobile platforms. Usually, most phones rely on their processing systems from a central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU). With the Kirin 970, Huawei put a third processor in their chip-- a neural processing unit (NPU), which is embedded with a dedicated AI processor.
For the specifications, the Kirin 970 boasts of a 12-core GPU and an 8-core CPU crammed in a 10-nm architecture. Meanwhile, the NPU is capable of processing 2,000 images per minute shown through a benchmark image recognition test – a first of its kind for a mobile platform chip. The HUAWEI chipset is also the first commercial SoC to use the Mali-G72 second generation Bifrost-based GPU from ARM.
The public may first experience the Kirin 970 in the upcoming release of the Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, set to launch on Oct. 16. Huawei's new flagship phones will be the first devices to utilize the advanced chipset, and is said to be serious competitors for Apple and Samsung's latest mobile platforms, the iPhone 8 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.
