28 Nov 2017
2 MINS READ
Recently, iPhone 8 was launched with much fanfare. There were advertisements all over the places during this festival season announcing its arrival and availability. Apple is emphasizing on 4 differentiators in the new iPhone, namely All-glass design, Advanced cameras, Wireless charging and A11 bionic chips. Coming from the stable of Apple, these are all bleeding edge innovations. While the first 3 are straightforward, what caught my attention was the coming-up the age of mobile computing chips as a major differentiator. On further diving-in, I somehow feel it is evident that this product will take us very much close to an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system which is meant to meticulously monitor the owner of the phone and learn from his behavior.
The A11 bionic chip that I am talking about here has an embedded AI unit which is a SoC (System-On-Chip) and Apple has named it as Neural Engine. While there is a certain amount of novelty associated with whatever Apple does, there are some more players in this game who are equally investing in this technology. Huawei has its latest smartphone SoC, the Kirin 970, and they call this as Neural Processing Unit (NPU). These developments strongly indicate that onboard AI has finally arrived and will be a significant improvement over the cloud AI that we have been experiencing so far.
However, another major and the largest smartphone SoC manufacturer Qualcomm has a different take on this. It has developed a Software Development Kit (SDK) as its own NPU. In its Snapdragon 600/ 800 series processors, this will allow developers to optimize apps for running AI algorithms.
So, has the countdown begun for cloud AI applications with this development and trend towards on-board AI? Not really. While on-board AI certainly has some advantages related to processing local data and speed of processing with dedicated space on the device chip, cloud AI will always retain the power for in-depth analysis and processing of large amount of non-contextual data. Also, it will be difficult for on-board AI to interact with other on-board AIs of peripheral devices. For this interaction to happen, it must either go through the cloud route with some sort of a brokerage in between or have a trusted security mechanism between devices to share data. Most likely, it is going to be the former for the foreseeable feature.
Another differentiating aspect is regarding the application types. While on-board AI will have an edge for device dependent activities like security, optimizing running apps to maximize battery time and other personal behavioral cloning whenever necessary, the cloud AI will have an edge in processing data, which requires deeper processing and application of classy data models.
Irrespective of all this, the development of on-board AI processing is a significant step forward and will open vistas for developing new types of products & applications. With simultaneous development of chip and AI technology, the top-up applications need to not only keep pace with the development but also undergo frequent changes to adapt and provide increasingly sophisticated functionalities. For this to happen, application and product developers need to follow the best practices not only in product conceptualization but also in development to ensure trouble-free long-term sustenance of products.
For more insights please feel free to connect with me on chinmoym@hexaware.com or Tweet @mchinmoy
Application Transformation Mgmt.
14 Jul 2021
02 Jul 2021
24 Jun 2021
22 Jun 2021
14 Jun 2021
13 May 2021
11 May 2021
28 Apr 2021
17 Dec 2020
14 Dec 2020
11 Dec 2020
27 Nov 2020
13 Nov 2020
12 Nov 2020
09 Nov 2020
06 Nov 2020
22 Oct 2020
13 Oct 2020
06 Oct 2020
17 Sep 2020
15 Sep 2020
26 Aug 2020
11 Aug 2020
07 Aug 2020
31 Jul 2020
22 Jun 2020
19 Jun 2020
11 Jun 2020
20 Apr 2020
31 Jan 2020
03 Sep 2019
31 Aug 2019
03 Jul 2019
26 Apr 2019
28 Mar 2019
13 Aug 2018
19 Jun 2018
Application Transformation Mgmt., Healthcare, Insurance
18 Jun 2018
14 Sep 2016
03 Sep 2016
25 Aug 2016
11 Jul 2016
BI & Analytics
19 Mar 2009
26 Nov 2010
Digital Assurance
02 Jan 2012
17 Feb 2012
Infrastructure Mgmt. Services
02 Mar 2012
03 Jan 2013
04 Feb 2013
06 Feb 2013
Digital Assurance, Enterprise Solutions
14 Feb 2013
18 Feb 2013
21 Feb 2013
27 Feb 2013
Others
01 Mar 2013
04 Mar 2013
Enterprise Solutions
05 Mar 2013
18 Mar 2013
Digital Assurance, Enterprise Solutions, Others
22 Mar 2013
12 Apr 2013
26 Apr 2013
29 Apr 2013
13 May 2013
11 Jun 2013
17 Jun 2013
25 Jun 2013
19 Aug 2013
26 Aug 2013
27 Aug 2013
03 Sep 2013
10 Sep 2013
19 Sep 2013
24 Sep 2013
26 Sep 2013
30 Sep 2013
01 Oct 2013
03 Oct 2013
01 Nov 2013
19 Nov 2013
Enterprise Solutions, Manufacturing and Consumer
28 Nov 2013
03 Dec 2013
20 Dec 2013
03 Jan 2014
22 Jan 2014
27 Jan 2014
31 Jan 2014
12 Feb 2014
13 Feb 2014
20 Mar 2014
24 Mar 2014
17 Apr 2014
11 Jun 2014
Manufacturing and Consumer
26 Jun 2014
30 Jun 2014
10 Jul 2014
15 Jul 2014
16 Jul 2014
18 Jul 2014
28 Oct 2014
13 Jul 2015
06 Aug 2015
26 Aug 2015
28 Sep 2015
07 Oct 2015
26 Oct 2015
07 Mar 2016
22 Mar 2016
13 May 2016
23 May 2016
15 Nov 2016
22 Nov 2016
25 Nov 2016
Business Process Services
25 Apr 2017
Banking and Financial Services
18 May 2017
30 May 2017
23 Jun 2017
27 Jun 2017
18 Jul 2017
26 Oct 2017
Healthcare, Insurance
11 Dec 2017
25 Jan 2018
21 Feb 2018
14 Mar 2018
( Mandatory field * )
The information you provide will be used in accordance with our terms ofPrivacy Policy
Please Check on "I Agree" to register for the blog.