January 30, MediaTek held a press conference in Beijing, introduced the AI strategy and the latest release of the NeuroPilot artificial intelligence platform, focusing on the terminal AI (embedded AI), to voice, visual recognition as the cut-in direction. After experiencing last year's adjustment Xu Li, in 2018, MediaTek began full force in the field of AI.
Terminal AI: brings four significant advantages
After years of development, cloud computing capabilities have been strengthened as infrastructure such as ICT becomes more and more sophisticated. However, at the same time, cloud AI faces challenges such as network dependence, response delay, bandwidth limitations and privacy protection.
For example, a self-driving car generates up to 1GB of data per minute and the data capacity far exceeds the existing network bandwidth. Cloud AI can not meet the demand in applications that require large amounts of data and real-time response.
Another example is the smart home camera, the user does not want to upload the home screen data to the cloud, in such data-sensitive scenarios, terminal AI program more appropriate.
In addition, because the cloud-based AI faces huge amounts of data computation, it also brings more power consumption. If it is processed on the terminal side, the power consumption of the system is reduced.
Therefore, in the view of MediaTek, from the cloud AI to the terminal AI, it can bring significant improvement in response, privacy, link, power and so on.
It is based on the above aspects, we see that not only MediaTek, including Qualcomm, including a lot of IC design companies, choose to force in the field of terminal AI.At the same time, IC design company has a natural and terminal has extensive contact, which It is also conducive to a more closely integrated with the terminal.
'In contrast, MediaTek end-side, based on existing communications, connectivity and rich product line advantages, making the layout of the terminal AI field more complete, the resulting benefits and influence will be greater.' MediaTek CTO Associate Lin Zongyao office told reporters micro-network.
An industry source told reporters that from a development trend point of view, AI is often started from the cloud, but as time goes by, because of security, user-friendly needs, and will gradually move, a lot of applications will be migrated from the cloud Terminal, the most common AI application model in the future, may be in the cloud for training, in the terminal to do the implementation.
As you can see, the current AI has entered the real application layer scene in many areas such as voice recognition and image recognition, and is closely integrated with the business model to start exerting real value, while the mobile terminal will become the world's most popular artificial intelligence platform , Lots of opportunities will emerge around smart terminals and artificial intelligence.
MediaTek's current layout in the labor field can clearly be seen in this direction.At the beginning of CES, AI solutions including intelligent voice assistants, smart TVs and self-driving cars have been unveiled to redefine consumer electronics devices , Is committed to become a terminal AI promoter.According to Lin Zongyao revealed that carrying the latest MediaTek AI platform smartphone products will be available in March.
NeuroPilot: Turnkey to Platform Strategy Transformation
At CES earlier this year, MediaTek launched NeuroPilot, an AI-based AI platform designed to bring about 1.5 billion units each year to MediaFocus through the integration of hardware (AI processors: Artificial Intelligence Processing Unit) and software (such as the NeuroPilot SDK) Technology chip consumer electronics with all kinds of AI capabilities.
From the information posted at the conference, the NeuroPilot architecture includes the top-level application, the middle-tier NN runtime, and the underlying heterogeneous run-time unit.
At the application level, the NeuroPilot platform supports the existing mainstream AI framework for downloadable apps, including Google's TensorFlow, Caffe, Amazon's MXNet, Sony's NNabla, etc. App development is also supported by the operating system. Android and Linux system.
At the middle tier, customization and portability requirements for specialist partners such as Shang-Tong, Kuang Shi and other AI vendors provide a custom interface on the NN runtime.
At the bottom of the heterogeneous computing part, it also provides an interface open to professional partners to facilitate the operation of some manufacturers to enhance the efficiency of special AI instructions.
It is worth mentioning that, NeuroPilot's underlying architecture, using at the same time able to support AI-capable CPU, GPU and APU heterogeneous operating mode.In Lin Zongyao view, heterogeneous mode of operation borrowed previously released for multi-core CPU architecture CorePilot technology, flexible control CPU, GPU, APU work together, according to the different nature of the work carried out a reasonable allocation, effectively improve the efficiency of AI operations, to play the best performance and the best power consumption.
In addition, NeuroPilot also offers a complete toolkit, intuitive simulation features to help developers debug, friendly developer toolkit also provides developers with the convenience of the difficulty and the AI is not depth calculation algorithm, and Is how to combine deep learning algorithms with applications and systems, which makes traditional IC designers inevitably want to jointly define products with application vendors, so in the AI solution, MediaTek has changed the previous 'turnkey' approach to Using platform strategy.
'We will work together to support different product lines based on the platform and the underlying technology architecture built on the combination of superior resources in communications, connectivity and other areas, because more and more AI development speed, So MediaTek must be with partners to be able to do more competitive products. "Lin Zongyao said.
Force AI: for the future to provide growth momentum
MediaTek ushered in the 20th anniversary of its establishment in 2017, but at the same time, it experienced a decline in market share and revenue. In June last year, one of the major goals put forward by the CEO of MediaTek was to make MediaTek Smart, etc. At the same time, MediaTek announced plans to invest NT $ 200 billion (about 44 billion RMB) in the next five years for projects including AI, 5G Communications, Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, Vehicle Networking, Software And services, AR / VR and other seven areas of scientific research and development.
Tan Guanzhou, general manager of MediaTek pointed out that AI is omnipresent while MediaTek is hoping to become the enabler of terminal AI.The terminal AI will be the future trend and how to improve the AI capability of mobile terminals and smart home devices is the next two to three years The main direction of development.
Prior to MediaTek also said that since 2018 AI related products have been gradually imported mainstream consumer products.
MediaTek has released AI products and technologies one after another during CES 2018. For example, in the home and entertainment markets, a new generation of home entertainment platforms that support artificial intelligence is launched, and the 4K dongle chipset MT8695, MT8516 System Module (SoM) and MT817x smart Display solution that supports AI-Voice and AI-Vision applications.
In addition, smart TVs (HDR and 4K UHD smart TV chip MT5598 at 120Hz), smartphones, etc. The next generation P-series products have been identified to support AI and computer vision to provide more accurate face recognition, AR / VR, 3D sensing technology (3D sensing).
Currently, MediaTek partners with Amazon and Alibaba AI intelligent speaker products have been shipped one after another in the market reaped a good response.At the same time also came MediaTek won the Apple Smart Speaker HomePod WiFi custom ASIC (ASIC) orders News, no doubt for MediaTek in the field of AI lay an important foundation.
In the Internet of Things, MediaTek and Alibaba artificial intelligence laboratory reached a strategic cooperation for smart home control protocols, Internet of Things chip customization, AI intelligent hardware and other fields to carry out long-term close cooperation.
In the automotive electronics market, Vision-based ADAS, Millimeter Wave (mmWave), In-Vehicle Infotainment, In-Vehicle Communication Systems (Telematics) and other four core areas cut into the global automotive manufacturers to provide complete and highly integrated product line system solutions.
According to the micro-network reporter learned that MediaTek in 2017, including intelligent voice assistant, Internet of things, power management and ASIC and other business have more than 20% growth rate is expected in the next 1-2 years, will maintain more than double-digit percent per year Growth trend, and these growth product line follow-up is expected to account for more than 30% of the overall revenue size, which will undoubtedly bring a new growth momentum for MediaTek.