Review | Huawei Mate 10 first impressions: ‘intelligent’ phone’s NPU chip can run AI and an internet-free digital assistant

The smartphone era is over – that was what Richard Yu, Huawei’s head of consumer business, told me in Berlin in August. He was, of course, building hype for the Mate 10 (and Mate 10 Pro), which the Chinese tech giant is calling the “intelligent” phone.

Announced on Monday in Munich, both variants of the Mate 10, at first glance, follow the 2017 mobile handbook closely.

The bezels have been reduced considerably from last year’s Mate 9; both devices have glass backs; the Pro has that elongated 18:9 aspect ratio. The dual Leica camera set-up from previous Huawei flagships has returned, and the aperture matches LG’s industry leading f/1.6 aperture.

The Mate 10’s Kirin 970 chip set, which the company developed in house, is the world’s first mobile SoC (systems on a chip) to have a dedicated NPU (neural processing unit).

For those who may be unfamiliar, an NPU is essentially like a CPU (central processing unit) that has for decades been used as the “brains” of a computer, but it’s much more powerful and has the ability to adapt and grow. Yes – NPU is built for running artificial intelligence.

“In traditional CPUs and GPUs [graphic processing unit], they process information step by step. If step A happens, then B happens … they are reactive chips,” explains Justin Zhang, Huawei’s smartphone marketing senior director.