Anker's Thus Chip Brings AI Power to Soundcore Earbuds

The model never has to move again." The first Thus chip will integrate into Soundcore's upcoming flagship earbuds. The company says it's starting with earbuds because they're the most challenging devices to put AI chips in due to size constraints. The small space limits the amount of power available, and because the chip is always active while you're wearing the earbuds, previous designs had to rely on small neural networks capable of handling a few hundred thousand parameters.

But Anker says that with the more energy-efficient compute-in-memory design, the Thus chip is capable of handling several million parameters, significantly increasing the computing power to handle things like complex world noise. Traditional call noise canceling relies on those small onboard neural networks and can have difficulty isolating your voice in very noisy environments, which results in ambient noise leaking through or voices getting highly compressed, making it difficult to hear. Anker says the larger neural network available on the Thus chip, plus eight MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) microphones and two bone conduction sensors to focus in on your voice, in its yet-to-be-announced earbuds will have significantly cleaner call audio, regardless of the environment.