MediaTek joined Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) to advance its edge AI platform

The global fabless semiconductor company MediaTek just joined the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) to drive AI innovation and support the evolution of its edge AI platform.

The company is currently enabling around 1.5 billion connected devices a year and is a market leader in developing innovative systems-on-chip (SoC) for mobile device, home entertainment, connectivity and IoT products.

ONNX was created and launched by Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft to establish an interoperability standard. This standard is for transferring deep learning models between frameworks. It resulted in an open ecosystem that allows AI developers to mix and match the tools and frameworks they need during any stage of a project.

Existing involvement in the Android Neural Network (ANN), combined with its new support of and participation in ONNX, is part of MediaTek’s strategic imperative. Their goal is to continue integrating AI across its technology portfolio.

MediaTek recently launched its new NeuroPilot AI platform, which encompasses both hardware and software, including an SDK and an AI processing unit. This supports the development of AI-enabled mobile devices, smart home devices, and autos. Furthermore, the company unveiled the MediaTek Helio P60 system-on-chip (SoC). It’s the first SoC platform featuring a multi-core AI processing unit (mobile APU). Its Arm Cortex A73 and A53 processor mix delivers up to a 70% CPU performance boost over the Helio P23 and Helio P30. Besides, it delivers incredible energy efficiency to extend device battery life. MediaTek Helio P60 brings MediaTek’s NeuroPilot AI technology to the heart of your smartphone. Its AI-compute architecture works seamlessly across CPU, GPU, and Mobile APU within the SoC to maximize performance and energy efficiency.

MediaTek’s NeuroPilot SDK in P60 is compatible with Google Android Neural Networks API (Android NNAPI). It also supports common AI frameworks, including TensorFlow, TF Lite, Caffe, and Caffe2. That makes...Jerry Yu, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Home Entertainment Business Group at MediaTek said: “A key to developing AI applications and capabilities lies within an open ecosystem. Shared research and interoperability are the true enablers of innovation. To evolve our own AI platform and to ensure that interoperability and choice are preserved when developing with MediaTek NeuroPilot, it made sense to widen our support for open AI frameworks by joining the Open Neural Network Exchange.”The MediaTek NeuroPilot AI platform already supports mainstream AI frameworks. It operates in concert with existing neural processing SDKs, including Google TensorFlow, Caffe, Amazon MXNet, Sony NNabla, and more. At the OS level, MediaTek offers support for both Android and Linux.As a partner of the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX), MediaTek is working on bringing ONNX support to the chipset in Q2 2018. This is to provide developers with even more flexibility for designing AI-powered applications.