The essential role of NPUs and AI chips in advancing smartphone and PC roadmaps
Neural Processing Units, commonly referred to as NPUs, are purpose-built processors engineered to boost artificial intelligence and machine learning tasks. While CPUs manage broad, general operations and GPUs deliver exceptional parallel graphics and computation, NPUs concentrate on matrix calculations, inference processes, and highly efficient on-device training. In addition to NPUs, the wider family of AI chips encompasses dedicated accelerators embedded within system-on-a-chip architectures or supplied as standalone components for PCs and servers.Over the past five years, AI workloads have shifted from cloud-centric processing toward on-device intelligence. This shift is driven by latency requirements, privacy concerns, and the need for energy…
