Kirin 980 Brings Consumer Unparalleled Smartphone AI

Huawei, a global leader in ICT infrastructure and smart devices, is also a pioneer in innovation, trailblazing developments and technological ingenuity. With customer needs at the forefront of these advancements, Huawei is continuously breaking boundaries while launching products that better suit customers and make their lives easier. In order to do so, artificial intelligence (AI) remains a key focus of Huawei as it continues to deliver and advance unparalleled smartphone capabilities, particularly through HUAWEI Kirin 980 Mobile AI chipset. Thanks to Huawei and Kirin 980, AI is no longer just a buzzword, but a reality incorporated into everyday lives through Huawei smartphones.

Having launched during the summer of 2018, Kirin 980 was the world’s first 7nm Mobile AI system-on-chip (SoC) featuring improved performance and efficiency over its previous generation. Its predecessor, the Kirin 970, was the first mobile SoC that came with NPU which is dedicated for AI processing. Through Kirin 980, having greater AI power locally on devices that it powers, Huawei has advanced the technology, taking another step to make users’ lives better through AI, and setting yet another industry standard.

Along with Kirin 980 comes HiAI 2.0, an ecosystem that supports more powerful AI processing capabilities, as well as richer interfaces and operators. HiAI 2.0 is an open platform designed to facilitate the development of On-Device AI. The latest iteration of the platform provides developers with an open ecosystem that lets them tap into the capabilities of Huawei’s chipsets, devices and cloud via HiAI Foundation, HiAI Engine and HiAI Service.

The HiAI ecosystem improves the development and integration efficiency of AI apps, ultimately resulting in faster development cycles. The high intelligence of Kirin 980 lends itself to improving the development environment for all developers and partners, allowing them to create AI apps more easily.

Additionally, Kirin 980 powers Huawei’s latest smartphone series, the HUAWEI Mate 20 Series. The chipset allows the series to perform faster without exhausting the entire battery, and while maintaining smooth functionality during use. Additionally, the response time for an app or game to open, and the transition from one game to another is faster than ever before. 

As we know it, the mobile gaming industry is growing, and graphics within are become more advanced. To deliver a stronger gaming experience, Huawei integrated the Mali-G76 GPU into Kirin 980. Mali-G76 offers 46 percent greater graphics processing power at 178 percent improved power efficiency over the previous generation. Additionally, the Mali-G76 also features an innovative clock boosting technology that utilizes AI. This technology intelligently identifies gaming workloads and has the ability to adjust resource allocation for optimal gaming performance as needed.

In addition to the advancements of mobile gaming, Kirin 980 has elevated the photography experience for Huawei consumers as the Dual-NPU strengthens the On-Device AI with greater processing power and intelligence. With this, Kirin 980 provides a real-time user experience in areas like facial recognition, object recognition, object detection, image segmentation, AI translations, and more.  

As Huawei is always in pursuit of delivering the best products to its customers, its proprietary fourth-generation ISP was integrated into the SoC, further expanding on the depth of technology that is included in its camera. In addition to a 46 percent increase in pixel throughput when compared to its predecessor, the new ISP provides better support for multi-camera configurations, and an all new HDR color reproduction technology that highlights objects on various parts of an image, all while balancing color and detail information to produce the best looking photos. Additionally, Kirin 980 uses multi-pass noise reduction that removes artifacts, creating better quality images that are taken in low-lighting.

For instances when users are taking a photo of more than one person, AI enabled through Kirin 980 supports multi-person motion prediction. This accurately reads the motion of human subjects that are within the frame and rigs the 3D model in real time. Additionally, Kirin 980’s AI has the capabilities to identify and track a wide range of objects in real time through its camera. With the transition from Kirin 970 to Kirin 980, the new SoC drives Huawei’s AI to the next level as the capabilities go far beyond its competition. 

With Kirin 980, Huawei developers are now able to create fuller AI experiences for users, and realize their visions for more advanced AI applications. Through work, travel and play, Kirin 980 brings Huawei users unparalleled smartphone AI. Despite Huawei’s success and position at the forefront of AI, innovation, collaboration and user experience continue to drive these developments. As a leading developer, Huawei is always looking to deliver the best user experience, and through open collaboration, Kirin 980 will continue to bring unparalleled smartphone AI to consumers alike.