Xiaomi Supplier Huami Launches New Wearable AI Chip

Technology, Healthcare Author: Dixuan Lu, Beier Kan Editor: Luke Sheehan Jun 17, 2020 10:55 AM (GMT+8)

Huangshan-2 to be mass-produced in the fourth quarter of 2020, and wearable products equipped with the chip will be available next year.

What time is it? Image credit: Huami Technology website

On June 16, during its first AI Innovation Conference in Hefei, Huami Technology (HMI:NYSE) released five AI-based biological data engines, an optical sensor and a new generation of AI chips customized for wearables – Huangshang-2.

Huami was incubated by Xiaomi Corporation (01810:HKEX) and is publicly considered one of the key actors in the consumer electronics giant's ecosystem. As the R&D and hardware provider for various types of Xiaomi devices, Huami has collected enormous revenue from Xiaomi’s purchase orders. Though the revenue generated from Xiaomi's orders went down from 92% in 2016 to 72% in 2019, Huami's downstream structure is still imbalanced. 

Being the second-largest shareholder of Huami, Xiaomi continued its mutually beneficial cooperation in the recently published Mi Band 5, which embedded the Huami-empowered health assessment system Huami-PAI.

As the core part of wearable devices, the Huangshan-2 can help take full advantage of five AI biological data engines, including Huami-PAI.

Firstly, it has two advantages: high computing efficiency and low power consumption. Compared with the ARM Cortex-M4 architecture processor commonly used in wearable devices, the overall computing efficiency has been increased by 38%.

Secondly, the performance of local AI data calculation is improved and recognition speed accelerated. For instance, Huangshan-2’s Atrial Fibrillation recognition speed is seven times that of Huangshan-1 and 26 times that of other software algorithms on the market.

Finally, in theory, the overall power consumption of Huangshan-2 may be reduced by 50%, improving the endurance capability of wearable devices.