Anker develops in-house chip for AI integration in products

Anker has unveiled its proprietary silicon that promises to integrate local AI into audio gadgets, mobile devices, and IoT technology. 

The Thus processor stands as the planet's first neural network compute-in-memory AI audio chip, offering a smaller size and reduced energy consumption for complex processing. This makes it an appealing option for compact devices.

Steven Yang, Anker's CEO, noted, “Until now, all AI chips kept the model separate from the computation processes. 

To perform computations, the device had to repeatedly shuffle all these parameters back and forth for each inference. 

Thus places the computation exactly where the model resides, eliminating the need to move the model again.”

The debut of the Thus chip will take place within Soundcore’s next high-end earbuds. 

The brand is beginning with earbuds due to the significant challenges in fitting AI chips within the tight space. 

This limited space not only restricts available power but also means that since the chip is operational whenever the earbuds are worn, earlier designs had to use compact neural networks handling a few hundred thousand parameters. 

However, the energy-efficient compute-in-memory design of the Thus chip now supports several million parameters, enabling greater computational power to manage complex ambient noise.

Standard call noise cancellation depends on these small internal neural networks and can struggle to clearly capture your voice in extremely noisy settings, leading to ambient noise being picked up or voices becoming overly compressed, resulting in difficult communication. 

Anker points out that with the larger neural network capability of the Thus chip, coupled with eight MEMS microphones and two bone conduction sensors focused on your voice in its future earbuds, there will be noticeably clearer call sound, no matter the surrounding environment.

While this sounds promising, we must wait to see how the compute-in-memory Thus chip stacks up in real-world competition — such as with the Apple AirPods Pro 3 and Sony WF-1000XM6. 

Based on a previous leak in March, the initial earbuds featuring the Thus chip are likely to be the Liberty 5 Pro Max and Liberty 5 Pro, anticipated to cost $229.99 and $169.99, respectively. 

Anker plans to announce complete details about the earbuds along with additional AI-led features during Anker Day on May 21.