Movidius Myriad X VPU Lets Intel See The Mobile Future

The processor Intel's Movidius is unveiling today is the Myriad X. This processor will enable the next generation of smart devices with advanced processing power made specifically for visual computing. That's what the "VPU" is all about, after all, a Vision Processing Unit. This piece of hardware will let devices see, understand, and react to their world in real time.

With the Movidius Myriad X VPU, Intel is ready to roll with a small form factor processor for applications in Visual Intelligence. This includes drones, cameras, robotics of many sorts, wearables, and smart home devices. Autonomous devices are the most major aim of Intel's Movidius Myriad X VPU, taking on the future with a tiny body and top-notch performance.

Inside the Myriad X VPU is a dedicated hardware block, the Neural Compute Engine. This NCE is made to accelerate neural network interferences with "more than 1 TOPS of performance." This performance is achieved, says Intel, with an ultra-low power envelope "that Movidius technology is known for." Also inside the Myriad X is a cool 2.5 MB of on-chip memory.

That 2.5MB of homogenous on-chip memory can handle 450 GB per second of internal bandwidth. This in turn reduces power consumption as well as latency by keeping off-chip data transfer to a minimum.

This hardware works with over 20 hardware accelerators for stereo depth, optical flow, and other similar tasks. This hardware also works with 16 vector processors made optimized for computer vision. This setup allows the running of multiple imaging and vector processors pipelines simultaneously.

Ready to be at the heart of an AI machine, this hardware supports up to 8HD camera inputs, all at once, together making this VPU capable of handling 700-million pixels per second of image signal processing throughput.

"We're on the cusp of computer vision and deep learning becoming standard requirements for the billions of devices surrounding us every day," said vice president and general manager of Movidius, Intel New Technology Group, Remi El-Ouazzane. "Enabling devices with humanlike visual intelligence represents the next leap forward in computing. With Myriad X, we are redefining what a VPU means when it comes to delivering as much AI and vision compute power possible, all within the unique energy and thermal constraints of modern untethered devices."

Look at the timeline below for more action from Movidius. This is Intel's big move for mobile devices – and not just smartphones.