Apple is working on a chip to be integrated on its smartphones that will only manage the processes for artificial intelligence
According to Bloomberg, a U.S. news site, Apple is working on a new chip to be implemented on its mobile devices to improve the management of processes for artificial intelligence.
The Cupertino-based company already announced last year during WWDC (the annual conference dedicated to developers) that it was working on a new technology for machine learning, but so far no one had seen a trace of it. The new chip should take the name of Neural Engine and should work in conjunction with the main chipset of the device (smartphone and tablet). The Neural Engine should manage only the processes related to artificial intelligence in order to improve the services offered to users and simultaneously increase the autonomy of smartphones. It is still not known for sure if it will be mounted already on the upcoming iPhone 8.
What will be the tasks of Neural Engine
Apple was one of the first companies to introduce a personal assistant on its smartphones. But with time, the Cupertino company relaxed and allowed other companies (Amazon and Google) to enter the same industry and make better virtual assistants than Siri. That’s why Apple decided to make a second processor that would flank the main one and handle only the artificial intelligence processes. A similar choice has been made by Qualcomm and Google that in the last period have improved their systems related to AI. Neural Engine should go to manage many of the daily functions of the smartphone, which burden both the CPU and the GPU and decrease the autonomy of the device. Among the functions that will be handled by Neural Engine there will definitely be facial recognition, keyboard predictivity and voice assistant tasks. But that’s not all. The chipset will also be developed to handle augmented reality applications, the real test bed for the future of smartphones.
When will the Neural Engine chipset be launched
According to experts, the chances of seeing the Neural Engine chipset on the next iPhone 8 are good, although Apple still hasn’t officially presented it. At the upcoming WWDC 2017, which will be held in early June in San Jose, we will surely learn a lot more.