Arm juices mobile GPUs with neural tech for better graphics

Chip designer Arm is bringing dedicated neural accelerator hardware to its GPU blueprints used in phones. It expects this to deliver higher quality visuals while boosting AI performance.

The UK-based tech biz says that its mobile graphics processor designs, scheduled to be launched in 2026, will feature neural tech that can cut GPU workloads in half and allow for other AI capabilities in future. Arm also announced a developer kit so programmers can start getting to grips with it today, plus ML Extensions for the Vulkan Graphics API.

Arm initially sees neural acceleration being used for upscaling graphics to a higher resolution, without affecting performance. Other envisioned uses are doubling the frame rate using interpolation, and improving image quality by enabling real-time path tracing on mobile devices using fewer rays per pixel.

"As AI increasingly merges with real time graphics, we need GPU-based AI that's tightly integrated, performant and ...