GoKawiilLil Katz / Android Authority
TL;DR Anker is introducing its Thus chip for on-device AI.
Thus utilizes a compute-in-memory architecture to minimize power requirements.
The first Thus-powered earbuds will debut next month, but Anker plans to get Thus into a whole lot more products.
To listen to some of the most vocal AI proponents, these systems are going to solve every problem known to man and usher in a new utopian age. While the reality is a bit less transformative, there’s no denying that AI is capable of some remarkable feats — when we throw sufficient processing power behind it, anyway. But now Anker is trying to show us that even devices with limited resources can get it on the benefits, as it introduces its new AI chip solution.
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Wireless earbuds sound like one of the most challenging possible targets for on-device AI: They’re physically compact, with not a lot of room for big batteries; they live right up against our skin, so if they get hot it’s going to be very uncomfortable; and they don’t tend to have a reliable, high-bandwidth data connection capable of leaning on cloud AI assistance. But don’t tell that to Anker, because this product category is exactly where the company’s getting its next-gen AI plans started.
The core of Anker’s efforts is what it’s calling Thus: an AI chip platform designed to meet these sort of challenging requirements. The chip’s biggest trick exists on the silicon level: a design called compute-in-memory that allows the processor to work directly on data without the typical overhead needed moving data in and out of memory — operations that Anker says can account for over 90% of the power that other solutions consume.
Anker
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