Global AI chip market to grow tenfold in next five years: white paper

BEIJING - The global market for mobile artificial intelligence (AI) chips is expected to reach $3.8 billion in 2022, a tenfold growth from the 2017 figure, said a white paper.

The market expansion is driven by the fast development of AI industry, as AI chips saw rapid penetration into the terminal sector, said the white paper on mobile AI technologies and application released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).

AI development will also drive innovation of the mobile chip industry, said the white paper, citing Strategic Analytics data, which showed that the market share of smartphone apps processors with on-device AI in the first quarter of 2018 grew threefold from the same period of previous year.

In 2017, the global market for mobile AI chips stood at $370 million, accounting for 9.5 percent of the global AI chip market and indicating huge potential, according to the white paper.

The growing momentum of mobile AI chips has attracted tech giants including Google, Facebook, Alibaba and Tencent, intensifying the ongoing market competition, it said.

China, a latecomer in the traditional chip industry, has made an early start in tapping the emerging market of intelligent chips, the report said.