Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun recently attended the 2017 World Internet Conference in Wuzen, China, where he confirmed that at least some of the company’s smartphones planned to be released in 2018 will take advantage of new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. While no exact monikers were revealed, there is a possibility that the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 7 which is supposed to be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 845 chipset could be the first smartphone in the OEM’s 2018 portfolio to incorporate advanced AI capabilities.
Xiaomi has shown an interest in the AI field earlier this year when the company released the Mi AI speaker priced at $45. However, next year it appears that the Chinese tech giant intends on implementing its AI technologies into more device types including smartphones, and the CEO unsurprisinglywent on to claim that these mysterious handsets set to be launched next year are worth waiting for. No exact release dates were revealed in regards to the first AI-powered smartphone from the company, though all evidence so far suggests that the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 7 is the most likely device to take advantage of AI. The handset in question was previously rumored to adopt the unannounced Snapdragon 845 from Qualcomm, which is expected to be manufactured on a 10nm LPE (Low Power Early) FinFET process and adopt ARM Cortex-A75 CPU cores along with an Adreno 630 graphics chip. The chipset is also said to incorporate an X20 LTE modem but not much else is known about Qualcomm’s upcoming top-tier silicon and as such, these specifications remain subject to change. Whatever the case may be, it’s safe to say that Qualcomm’s next premium SoC following the Snapdragon 835 will be intelligent enough to be able to back Xiaomi’s AI-centered features, whatever they may be.
As for the Xiaomi Mi 7, the device is said to adopt a full-screen design with an 18:9 aspect ratio, and pair its SoC with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM. Previous reports also suggested that the device might be scheduled for an official unveiling in February, and assuming that all of these rumors turn out to be correct, the Xiaomi Mi 7 could not only be the company’s first mobile device to deeply integrate AI but could also be among the first Android smartphones to adopt Qualcomm’s next high-end mobile chipset.