Arm Holdings has introduced “Lumex,” its latest family of mobile chip designs engineered specifically to run artificial intelligence workloads directly on devices ranging from smartwatches to premium smartphones.
The Lumex architecture, unveiled Tuesday, enables AI-powered applications such as real-time translation and interactive assistants to operate locally, without relying on cloud-based processing or an internet connection.
The new Lumex lineup comes in four variants, with options tailored for high energy efficiency in wearables and maximum computing power in top-tier smartphones. At the high end, Lumex can support demanding software capable of using large AI models natively, bridging the gap between edge performance and cloud capabilities.
Chris Bergey, senior vice president and general manager at Arm, said the proliferation of AI functionalities is now “an expectation” for mobile users. AI is becoming pretty fundamental, whether in real-time interactions or game-changing use cases like on-device AI translation, he noted.
Part of Arm’s Compute Subsystems (CSS) platform, Lumex aims to streamline development for handset manufacturers and chipmakers by offering extensively pre-developed silicon blueprints. The move reflects Arm’s broader ambition to accelerate growth in mobile, data center, and other verticals by providing more comprehensive turnkey solutions.
The Lumex chips are optimized for advanced 3-nanometer manufacturing processes, which are also being utilized by TSMC—the same foundry technology featured in Apple’s most recent iPhone chips.
While Arm has long supplied chips to nearly all major smartphone makers, the launch event is being held in China, a strategic market that includes many of the world’s leading handset brands beyond Apple and Samsung.
