Huawei unveiled its newest chipset, the Kirin 970, at IFA 2017, while also teasing its next flagship smartphone, the Mate 10.
The China-based Huawei is hoping that the Kirin 970-powered Mate 10 will provide a legitimate challenge to Samsung's Galaxy Note 8, which is already being shipped to customers, and Apple's upcoming iPhone 8, which will be unveiled this month.
Huawei Kirin 970: What Can It Do?
At IFA 2017, Huawei CEO Richard Yu unveiled the Kirin 970, describing the chipset as the "world's first mobile device with a neural processing unit" and the "world's fastest mobile modem."
This means that the Kirin 970 will have artificial intelligence embedded within it, compared to other smartphones that rely on connecting to the cloud to activate their artificial intelligence capabilities.
The AI-enabled Kirin 970 will help make smartphones more personalized and allow the devices to anticipate the interests and actions of users. As an example of how AI can be used by Kirin 970-powered devices, Yu said that users will be able to translate foreign languages in real-time, activate functions through voice commands, or take advantage of augmented reality, among numerous other possibilities.
Yu added that the speed and low power requirement of the Kirin 970 will give its smartphones an edge over the iPhone 8 and the Galaxy Note 8. The battery life on its smartphone will increase by up to 50 percent thanks to the chipset, with faster feature performance and more compact design.
According to Yu, the cost of the development of AI for the Kirin 970 has cost the company billions of Chinese yuan over the past five years, resulting in breakthrough technology in the field.
"The NPU can think and actively work to provide you the best user experience, whereas other A.I. assistance like Google Assistant only works reactively," Yu said.
Huawei Mate 10 To Be Unveiled Soon
The first smartphone that will showcase the capabilities of the Kirin 970 is Huawei's next flagship smartphone, the Mate 10.
Yu confirmed that the Mate 10 will be unveiled on Oct. 16 in Munich, and while the executive did not provide any previews of the smartphone, he teased that the front of the device will be completely bezel-less.
In his keynote speech, Yu also showed a pair of photo samples. Both images were shown side-by-side with pictures taken by the Galaxy S8, with Yu later confirming that the Kirin 970 images were taken using the Mate 10. This shows how the NPU of the Kirin 970 takes better pictures by taking advantage of two image signal processors, for faster processing of image, data, and light information.
