Huami hints at next-generation AI chip for wearables

Huami Technologies will host its AI Innovation Conference on June 15, and today the company hinted on Weibo that it will be launching the next generation of AI chips for wearables.

Huami Technology released the world's first AI chip for smart wearables on September 17, 2018  - "Yellow Mountain No. 1".

It's a wearable processor with an integrated AI neural network and has four core AI engines: a cardiac biometrics engine , ECG, ECGPro, abnormal heart rhythm monitoring engine.

Yellow Mountain No. 1 has been used in many watches and bands under Huami's Amazfit brand. 

Huang Wang, CEO of Huami Technology, said in an article today, "As we all know, China's development of the chip industry has been hindered internally and externally over the years and has been difficult, and the situation is particularly urgent this year. No one can guarantee that they will be able to use their money to buy goods tomorrow."

Huang Wang also said that Huami was determined to make its own way from the very beginning.

He asked that a better wearable chip than Yellow Mountain No. 1 should be called Red  Mountain No. 1 or Yellow Mountain No. 2?

Due to the constraints and limitations of the usage scenario, it is more suitable than the X86 architecture for PCs and ARM architecture for mobile devices. The chip architecture for wearable devices must have ultra-high computing efficiency and ultra-low power consumption.

Huang Wang said that high performance and low power consumption seem to be like two sides of a coin.

One side is how to maximize the computational performance of local AI data under different technology paths and algorithm rules, because computational performance is not always the same as the performance of the device. Performance affects the speed of disease recognition, and every 1% increase in disease recognition speed could save one more live life.

On the other side of the equation is how to effectively improve range while keeping the battery capacity the same; after all, Huami isn't going to give the device a A Charger.

At this point, I'm a firm believer in both sides of the coin. What we're trying to do is make the coin stand up , he claims.

From what Huang Wang says, the wearable chip Huami will be releasing will balance performance and power consumption. Also according to the official sources, the new chip also supports active motion mode recognition, so look forward to that.