Dubai: Huawei is aiming to stay ahead of the smartphone race with built-in artificial intelligence aimed at taking on Apple’s new A11 Bionic chip.
The third largest smartphone manufacturer revealed its vision for the future of artificial intelligence with its 10 nanometre HiSilicon Kirin 970 chip at an event held in Dubai on Wednesday, the second stopover as part of its world tour.
Usually, a chip set has a CPU (central processing unit) and a GPU (graphics processing unit) but Huawei is adding an NPU (neural processing unit) to the chip set for AI. An NPU is a chip with a redesigned instructure that mimics a human brain.
Huawei confirmed that it will unveil the Huawei Mate 10 series with Kirin 970 at an event in Munich on October 16. Apple has added a neural engine to its new chip on iPhone X for Face ID, Animoji and augmented reality apps.
Clement Wong, head of global product marketing at Huawei Consumer Business Group, said that the chip can handle tasks like image recognition 20 times faster than a regular CPU.
Right now, all the AI features on mobile devices have been mostly powered by cloud but Wong said that the 970 chip will use the on-device AI and cloud AI together. The chip is five times faster than iPhone 7 Plus, the company says. The Kirin 970 chip is powered by an eight-core CPU and a 12-core GPU.
Open platform
“New developments in AI require joint effort across the entire value chain, involving tens of millions of developers, and the experience and feedback of hundreds of millions of users. Huawei is positioning the Kirin 970 as an open platform for mobile AI, opening up the chip set to developers and partners who can find new and innovative uses for its processing capabilities,” he said.
A lot of developers are working on AI apps and Google has launched its API (application programming interface) for developers, he added.
Moreover, he said that AI will place heavy demands on computing performance, energy efficiency and device-cloud synergy.
Gene Jiao, President of Huawei CBG, Middle East & Africa, said that 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. Building intelligence into our devices, networks, and industries will open up new worlds,” he said.
Overtook Apple
According to the research firm GfK’s first-half report, Huawei is now number two in the Middle East and Africa region in terms of sales volume with 13.8 per cent market share.
The Chinese company overtook Apple in global smartphone sales for June and July to capture the second spot globally after Samsung, according to research firm Counterpoint’s Market Pulse report.
Jiao is not happy with Huawei being number two for two months and said that the company’s goal is to become an “iconic brand” and become number one in the next three years.
He said that Huawei has invested $45 billion in research and development in the last 10 years for long-term growth.
