Smartphone devices still hold the key to innovation in the consumer tech market. New folding screens and other new form factors are likely to support this innovation, with super-flagship smartphones another significant development in the mobile space.
Interestingly, many respondents see ray tracing having an impact on mobile gaming in the near-term future. This supports Arm’s push for hardware-based ray tracing support on mobile devices through the flagship Immortalis-G715 GPU, which is already shipping on silicon for 2023 flagship smartphones.
There is widespread belief that AI inference soon will be higher across all consumer tech devices, particularly on the smartphone. AI inference is set to move from the cloud to the edge (the devices), with greater compute power on smartphones needed to enable the AI-based experiences of the future.
In terms of future AI functions on smartphones, battery-saving features are seen as a big innovation opportunity. New AI-based features and technologies will be a driving force behind this function and other advanced AI-based use cases, like enhanced camera functions. Here’s what the survey revealed:
Upgrading Form Factors and Devices
Just behind the acceptance of newer notebook architectures, 61 percent predict that folding screens and other flexible formats for smartphones and tablets will most support mass-market innovation. This was followed by super-flagship gaming smartphones (42 percent).
Ray Tracing to Enhance Mobile Gaming
50 percent predict that the use of ray tracing for enhanced graphics will have the most impact on mobile gaming over the next five years.
AI Everywhere
Almost 90 percent predict that the level of AI inference on personal computing devices will be higher in five years than today (51 percent said it would be at a significantly higher level than today).
62 percent of respondents believe that AI inference will lead to battery life being saved on personal computing devices (e.g. through adjusting the processor and screen operations).
