35 pct of smartphones to be shipped with AI by 2020: report

All News 11:32 October 20, 2017

SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Yonhap) -- More than one in three smartphones in 2020 will be shipped with an artificial intelligence chipset capable of real-time translation and malware detection, giving health care advice and recognizing user behavior, a report said Friday.

The ratio of AI chipset-equipped smartphones is expected to rise to 35 percent or more than 500 million units in the cited years from just three percent in 2017.

Numbers are forecast to move up to 16 percent in 2018 and 26 percent in 2019, according to the report of Counterpoint Technology Market Research, a global research firm specializing in technology products. The report is titled "The Rise of AI: One in Three Smartphones Will Be AI Capable in 2020."

"One in three smartphones to be shipped in 2020 will natively embed machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities at the chipset level," the report said. "Apple, with its Bionic system on chip (SoC), proliferating across its complete portfolio over the next couple of years, will drive native AI adoption in smartphones. Its universal adoption of AI-capable SoCs will likely enable Apple to lead the AI-capable chip market through 2020."

Qualcomm, however, will soon likely catch up with the unlocking of AI chipsets in the coming few months, the report said. "It should be able to catch-up and is expected to be second in the market in terms of volume by 2020, followed by Samsung and Huawei."

The report predicted AI smartphones will be able to "perform a variety of tasks such as processing natural languages, including real-time translation; (and) helping users take better photos by intelligently identifying objects and adjusting camera settings accordingly."

AI chipsets will also "recognize user behaviour to identify if the phone is being misused, analyzing email and other apps for things like phishing attacks," the report said. "Machine learning algorithms can be used to generate health and lifestyle guidance for users by analyzing combinations of sensor data and user behaviour."

The report expected AI smartphones to "proliferate rapidly at the top-end of the market, and to relatively quickly filter into mid-range devices from the mid to latter part of 2018."