MediaTek Unveils Kompanio Ultra To Turbocharge Chromebooks With On-Device AI
In case you somehow haven't noticed it by now, there is an industry-wide effort to AI all the things. That includes Chromebooks (hello, Gemini), and to that end, MediaTek has unveiled a new Kompanio Ultra system-on-chip (SoC) to arm the platform with on-device AI capabilities. It's MediaTek's most powerful chip yet for Chromebooks, fueled in part by an 8th generation NPU (neural processing unit).
The integrated NPU delivers 50 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of AI processing power. To put that into perspective, Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite found on a spattering of Windows laptops is equipped with an NPU that delivers 45 TOPS. It's also considerably more than the onboard NPU on Intel's Core Ultra 285HX, which delivers 13 TOPS.
That's not quite an apples-to-apples comparison, given the different platforms, architectures, other capabilities, and market segments. But in terms of raw TOPS from just the NPU, it gives you an idea of why MediaTek is so big on the Kompanio Ultra.
Beyond the NPU, the new chip, which is built on a 3-nanometer manufacturing process, features an 8-core CPU consisting of a single Arm Cortex-X925 core clocked at up to 3.62GHz, three Cortex-A4 cores, and four Cortex-A720 cores. There's no mention of top clocks on the A4 and A720 cores, but one thing that's notable is that this is an all-big core design. It also features an 11-core Immortalis-G925 MC11 GPU with ray tracing support, and LPDDR5X-8533 memory support.
"Whether handling intensive applications like video editing, content creation, or high-resolution gaming, this processor ensures smooth, lag-free performance with unmatched multitasking capabilities," MediaTek says.
As you can see in the infographic above, MediaTek is claiming the Kompanio Ultra can maintain a consistent 60 frames per second in the "top 10 Android games." It's also claiming up to 18% faster CPU performance and up to 50% less power versus the competition, which the fine print suggests is a comparison to Intel's Core Ultra 5 125U CPU based on Meteor Lake.
Other notable bits include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 support, the ability to drive three 4K displays at 60Hz (one on device and two external), 4K60 10-bit video decode (HEVC/AVC/VP9/AVI) and encode (HEVC/AVC), and up to 20 hours of battery life for all-day computing.
"We're excited for the next step in our MediaTek partnership. The Kompanio Ultra will open up new avenues for on-device AI features on Chromebook Plus devices, while delivering awesome power efficiency for those crucial extra hours while on the go," said John Solomon, VP and GM, ChromeOS and Google for Education, Google.
MediaTek says that Chromebooks equipped with its Kompanio Ultra chip will show up in the coming months.
