Arm launches new generation of mobile chip designs geared for AI

Arm Holdings said on Tuesday it was launching its next-generation set of chip designs called Lumex that it has optimised for artificial intelligence to run on mobile devices such as smartphones and watches without accessing the internet.

Called Lumex, the new generation of Arm mobile designs come in four types, ranging from less powerful but more energy efficient ones designed for watches and other smart wearable devices to a version designed to maximize the computing horsepower available. The peak performance design aims to run software that harnesses the power of large AI models without accessing cloud computing on devices such as high-end smartphones.

“AI is becoming pretty fundamental to kind of what’s happening, whether it’s kind of real-time interactions or some killer use cases like AI translation,” said Chris Bergey, a senior vice president and general manager at Arm. “We’re just seeing (AI) become kind of this expectation.”

The Lumex designs announced on Tuesday are part of the company’s Compute Subsystems (CSS) business, which aims to offer handset makers and chip designers a more ready-made piece of technology that enables their speedy use in new products.

The more complete designs Arm is now making for data centres and mobile phones are part of the company’s longer-term plans to grow its smartphone and other revenue through a variety of means. Arm has also said it plans to invest more money into examining making its own chips and has hired several key people in order to do so.

The Lumex designs are optimised for so-called 3-nanometer manufacturing nodes, such as the process offered by TSMC. The series of iPhone chips Apple announced on Tuesday use a TSMC 3-nanometer process.

The company is holding a launch event in China on Wednesday to unveil the new designs because outside of Apple and Samsung the leading handset makers are located there, Bergey said.