For the longest time, Chromebooks have been good at what they were intended for: Being simple and affordable. But if you want raw power for different heavy tasks as a Windows PC would offer, they don’t cut it. Particularly, AI hasn’t been much of a focal point until recently. MediaTek’s Kompanio Ultra 910 may have just introduced the incremental update they need to rival traditional laptops.
Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek just introduced the Kompanio Ultra 910, and it’s easily their most powerful Chromebook processor yet. They’re integrating 50 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) of artificial intelligence computing power, and the chip is designed to run real, on-device workloads at a level Chromebooks haven’t really seen before.
The Kompanio Ultra underscores our commitment to delivering groundbreaking computing performance and efficiency that MediaTek has shown as a leader in the mobile compute space for many years. We worked closely with Google to ensure the newest Chromebook Plus devices enjoy next-generation on-device Al capabilities, superior performance per watt, and immersive multimedia.
Adam King, Vice President and General Manager of Computing and Multimedia Business at MediaTek.
AI in Chromebooks, and many other devices, has mostly been tied to cloud-based processing. If you use Google Docs’ smart suggestions, voice typing, or even image enhancements in Google Photos, those features typically rely on sending data to remote servers and then returning results. That works, but it means delays, security concerns, and the constant need for an internet connection.
The Kompanio Ultra 910, on the other hand, runs them locally and without draining extra power from network processing. It’s built on a 3 nanometer process, and also comes with an all-big-core CPU architecture. Normally, chips use a mix of big and small cores to balance performance and power efficiency.
This time around, MediaTek has decided to go all-in on the Kompanio Ultra’s design. It has one Cortex-X925 core running at 3.62 GHz, three Cortex-X4 cores each with 1MB L2 cache, and four Cortex-A720 cores with 12MB of L3 cache and 10MB system-level cache.
Related: MediaTek Expands AI, 6G, and Hybrid Connections
A multitasking beast with gaming power
If you’re using a Chromebook for work, study, or other reasons, dual displays expand your workspace. MediaTek says that it’s possible to hook up two external 4K displays effortlessly, courtesy of the Kompanio Ultra 910. It also supports Hi-Fi audio processing and Wi-Fi 7.
Gaming is also seeing noticeable improvements, especially considering how reliant Chromebooks have been on cloud services. If you weren’t using Stadia, you are using Xbox Cloud Gaming or Amazon Luna while also being at the mercy of network limitations.
The 11-core GPU on the Ultra 910 with dedicated ray tracing capabilities ensure that Chromebooks can now handle more graphically demanding tasks independently. It also has a 5th generation G925 GPU for native app execution.
It helps that the architecture in general is built to be efficient and opens the door for ultra-thin and lightweight Chromebooks to become more feasible. Speaking of, we’ll be seeing them with the new chip soon. MediaTek is yet to officially announce any PCs in the works.
