Zhang Yu

JeniZhang13@163.com

KNERON, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup, announced its first AI chip with specific capabilities in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) in Shenzhen yesterday, putting it a foot ahead in seizing a segment of the increasing demand for more efficient processors in the era of AI and IoT.

The chip, KL520, is about the size of a fingernail and enables 2-D and 3-D image recognition, according to the company.

It is suitable for 3-D sensing technologies such as structured light, time-of-flight (ToF) sensing and binocular stereoscopic imaging, and can calculate different neural network models.

“The advantage of this chip is a reconfigurable architecture. A reconfigurable architecture means you can reshape or rechange the algorithm inside the chip, which can make this chip quite flexible for different applications,” Albert Liu, founder and CEO of Kneron, told the Shenzhen Daily.

Liu depicted a very specific scenario of how the chip can be applied to facilitate our daily life. “If I have a 4-year-old daughter and my rice cooker and my cell phone contain this AI chip, I can send out a command to the rice cooker that as long as my daughter approaches it, there will be an alarm and the rice cooker will automatically terminate operation,” Liu said.

According to Liu, the IoT market is currently fragmented, but reconfigurable architecture will be better able to fulfill the need for compatibility across the market, as the AI chip can be widely used in intelligent door locks and access control systems, robots, drones, household appliances, toys and more.