HoloLens 2 will have a custom AI chip designed by Microsoft

[sumitroy]

Microsoft announced that the next generation of its mixed reality HoloLens headset will incorporate an AI chip. This custom silicon — a “coprocessor” designed but not manufactured by Microsoft — will be used to analyze visual data directly on the device, saving time by not uploading it to the cloud. The result, says Microsoft, will be quicker performance on the HoloLens 2, while keeping the device as mobile as possible.

HoloLens 2 will have a custom AI chip designed by Microsoft

 

[Bapun]

Today, Harry Shum, executive vice president of our Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, announced in a keynote speech at CVPR 2017, that the second version of the HPU, currently under development, will incorporate an AI coprocessor to natively and flexibly implement DNNs. The chip supports a wide variety of layer types, fully programmable by us. Harry showed an early spin of the second version of the HPU running live code implementing hand segmentation.

The AI coprocessor is designed to work in the next version of HoloLens, running continuously, off the HoloLens battery. This is just one example of the new capabilities we are developing for HoloLens, and is the kind of thing you can do when you have the willingness and capacity to invest for the long term, as Microsoft has done throughout its history. And this is the kind of thinking you need if you’re going to develop mixed reality devices that are themselves intelligent. Mixed reality and artificial intelligence represent the future of computing, and we’re excited to be advancing this frontier.

Second version of HoloLens HPU will incorporate AI coprocessor for implementing DNNs - Microsoft Research

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