Axera Highlights AI Innovation Roadmap at Major Industry Events
Throughout 2024, artificial intelligence penetrated both industrial production and everyday life at an unprecedented pace. Computing power, the driving force behind this intelligent transformation, achieved remarkable growth, while chip manufacturers introduced groundbreaking approaches to AI development.
Among the key players driving this progress, Axera—a leader in AI perception and edge computing platforms—made a strong presence at several major industry conferences. The company showcased its full-spectrum product portfolio and unveiled its forward-looking technology roadmap.
Jianwei Liu, Co-founder and Vice President of Axera, offered fresh insights into processor evolution in the AI era and highlighted Axera's achievements across smart AIoT, ADAS, and edge intelligence applications.
AI: Revolutionizing Productivity Through Cost Innovation
In this age of ubiquitous intelligence, how should businesses adapt? Speaking at ARM China's Terminal AI Ecosystem Seminar in late 2024, Liu emphasized that the surge in computing power is transforming AI into a reliable intelligent infrastructure service. "Intelligence today is becoming what electricity was to the past century—a fundamental force driving industrial efficiency and transforming production processes. Edge and terminal devices have emerged as crucial platforms for this AI revolution," he explained. Liu pointed to the rapid adoption of AI in smart cameras, smartphones, and AI PCs as evidence that consumers are now experiencing AI benefits firsthand, adding that "the proliferation of edge and terminal intelligence has truly made AI ubiquitous."
At its core, the AI revolution is driven by cost-efficiency considerations. While it dramatically reduces operational costs, businesses must find cost-effective paths to AI integration. Axera believes that processors in the AI era need tailored instruction sets with energy focused primarily on data computation. This vision led to the development of the AXNeutron AI processor, built on operator instruction sets and DSA microarchitecture, enabling businesses to adapt swiftly to evolving network demands.
The AXNeutron AI processor distinguishes itself through its operator instruction set and dataflow microarchitecture, employing programmable dataflow architecture to maximize energy efficiency and computing density. Its adaptable design ensures comprehensive operator instruction set support, accommodating diverse AI applications.
Streamlining Success: Less is More in Hardware-Software Integration
Today's enterprises demand more than raw computing power—they need robust toolchains for their AI initiatives. At ICCAD-Expo 2024, Jianwei Liu showcased AXNeutron AI processor's sophisticated toolchain. After years of refinement, AXNeutron now offers a mature ecosystem where customers can replicate performance and demos instantly, mastering the basics within an hour," he noted.
Currently, coordination between processor hardware and software remains suboptimal, highlighting the growing need for hardware-software co-design strategies in enterprise environments. Liu pointed out that the key is strategic decomposition—stripping down rather than building up, and that simpler hardware and software lead to more efficient and effective solutions for customers. The ultimate goal is to achieve the same clean separation between software and hardware that we see in today's GPUs and CPUs once instruction sets mature.
Democratizing AI Through Smart Ecosystem Innovation
Leveraging its early adoption of Transformer architecture, Axera has strategically positioned its AI processor lineup: The AXNeutron series now spans high, medium, and low computing tiers, serving diverse applications from smart city to smart driving and IoT, delivering tailored solutions for varying business needs.
In smart city deployments, Axera's AI processors efficiently handle LLM operations, addressing long-tail scenario challenges cost-effectively. The M76H series excels in smart driving applications, particularly in BEV multi-task modeling. In the AIoT sector, Axera has already become one of the leading global suppliers in terms of shipment volume.
As 2025 unfolds, edge and terminal intelligence stands poised for exponential growth. Axera remains committed to its mission of "AI for All, AI for a Better World," driving universal intelligence through increasingly economical, efficient, and sustainable AI processors.
