From the mountains to the plains: mobile AI sinks key nodes

In our common sense system, the term technology is often defined in two ways. The first is the technology that is sealed in the lab, and they are like kaolinite flowers, only a few people on the top of the mountain can access and understand the technology, most people just heard it in the news. The second is to enter the technology of life, people use it all the moment, as a normal and no longer the "technology" as a key word.

From the first to the second process, that is the process of technology sinking. In the sinking, technology will change the human life, it will be derived from the high value of the industrial chain, so as to further promote the progress of science and technology itself.

The process was once on a smartphone, and it was happening on the mobile AI.

Mobile AI is not a luxury, let kaolinite flower Bloom plain

> Imagine, if the future of mobile AI technology to bring voice assistance, user habits learning and so on can only be applied to several mobile phones, it is likely to lead to two of consequences. The first is due to the inability to thin technology research and development costs, can carry the terminal AI Computing mobile phone will be very expensive, the second is due to a small number of users can not bring marginal effect and lack of traffic support, participate in mobile AI application development will become a low rate of return things, ultimately only by the terminal manufacturing enterprises themselves to undertake service development.

But the combination of these two characteristics of the mobile phone has been-starting price of 49999 yuan, after the purchase of a fee to provide personal assistant service Vertu mobile phone.

Handset makers and chip makers are betting on mobile AI, not to recreate a Vertu, but to improve the hardware's pervasive experience with technology, and to collide with complete business opportunities. Let the mobile AI function sink into more terminals in order to let the kaolinite flower bloom the plains and become the crops that feed the entire mobile AI ecosystem.

Hard-to-popularize and soft-open: Mobile AI sinks two nodes

But no technology is sinking for no apparent reason, and for now the mobile AI will start sinking at the following two nodes.

The first node is the popularity of mobile AI chips to the midrange and even the low-end models.

After the introduction, we know that the key to the mobile AI experience is the independent Neural Network Computing processor, which uses heterogeneous computing to greatly increase the computational power and reduce the energy consumption of computing tasks. So the mobile AI wants to sink more users, and it will inevitably require NPU to more models.

Now Kirin 970 has been installed in the Huawei P series, mate series and glory 10 and V10, all over the 2500-6000-yuan high-end + flagship two grades. It is said that Huawei in Kirin 659, the next generation of Kirin 670 will also be equipped with NPU, the end-to-side AI capability further decentralized to the thousand-yuan machine.

In addition to the Kirin HiSilicon, Qualcomm launched the AI engine mode also allows more models to enhance the end-side computing capability, although the high-general vector processing +CPU+GPU solution to replace the NPU, in the final implementation of the effect and NPU there is a certain difference, but there is no doubt that In the future, with the addition of a series of chips and AI engines, the end-to-side calculation of mobile phones will become a common improvement. This also provides a prerequisite for moving the second node of the AI sink.

The second node is the improvement of the adaptation of mobile AI application development.

Adding the same mobile AI app to 1000 phones is obviously not up to sinking. Compared to hardware, the application of the ecological blossom is to let consumers perceive the key to mobile AI. Huawei is clearly the one who pays the most in this respect.

After occupying the first-mover advantage of the end-side AI through Kirin 970, Huawei has been focusing on the application ecology, opening up a number of hardware and software capabilities in the Hiai Mobile development framework, and launching the Development Board Hikey 970. At present, in the application market of Huawei, we can see a series of applications with AI capabilities, including photography, translation, short video, social and many other scenarios.

Genius's "scheming": Will moving AI sinks weaken Huawei's NPU advantage?

But the sinking of the mobile AI also poses a problem: When the biggest advantage begins to sink, will it weaken the exclusive experience of today's flagship mobile AI handset maker?

Imagine, if previously only in the flagship machine to experience the offline machine translation, scene recognition photography and so on, all of a sudden suddenly become the necessary functions of all mobile phones. For Huawei such a heavy investment in the development of NPU, to build hiai development of ecological enterprises, seems to appear some "unfair." At this point, however, Huawei insisted on opening up the Hiai, apparently opting for another way to compete.

In the same way, it will certainly happen on the mobile AI. At present, Huawei and other manufacturers have NPU hardware monopoly advantages, but only when the mobile AI completely sink, become an integral part of our lives, such an exclusive advantage can be truly revealed.

When we are accustomed to the use of voice and cell phone interaction, we will go to the pursuit of which phone can more accurately understand our words, when we are accustomed to the end-side AI brought about by the rapid processing, will improve the threshold of continuous pursuit of NPU to bring the efficient experience.

It is like in a class, everyone did not pass time, test 80 points and test 90 points are good students, but waiting for the whole class to test to 80 points, can show 90 points of the valuable. Now dedicated to promoting the Hiai framework, to nurture the mobile AI ecosystem of Huawei, is a 90-point genius in the class to help the school slag "tuition." Sinking is not the ultimate goal, after sinking the meticulous experience difference, is the real battlefield of mobile AI.

The real competition for mobile AI has not yet started in the 2018 new launch season, although a number of vendors have played the banner of AI phones. Until the launch of the "phone AI", "AI phone" the cry of the sound gradually, the real battle will begin.

Wait patiently, and your imaginary mobile AI may appear after sinking.

From the mountains to the plains: mobile AI sinks key nodes