With AI PC hype at a fever pitch, chip vendors Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm are engaged in a fierce dogfight. Meanwhile, relative newcomer Cixin Technology hopes to offer China a domestic alternative for AI performance with the Cixin P1, a brand-new SoC for AI PCs.
The Cixin P1, announced yesterday in a press conference, is an Arm processor built on the 6nm process, with a 12-core CPU at 3.2 GHz, 10-core integrated graphics, and an NPU capable of 30 TOPS — which pushes the entire package to a total of 45 TOPS. The CPU is built on the Armv9.2-A architecture and runs a configuration of 8 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. Little info about the chip has made it out of China, so we're relying heavily on coverage from the Electronic Engineering Times China.
Cixin declined to share specifics on the CPU, GPU, or NPU used in the P1 SOC. Based on the specs it did share, and ARM's presence as a guest at the launch event, it is highly likely that Cixin is licensing Arm's CPU and GPU designs. The Cortex-A or Cortex-X series are RISC processors designed by Arm; the onboard CPU is likely a new variant of these.
The GPU is an Arm Immortalis GPU. Speculation suggests that the specific GPU used is the Immortalis-G720 — Arm's 5th-gen mobile GPU, designed for mobile gaming and AI performance. The NPU likely comes from a partner other than Arm, since Arm's largest licensable NPU only scales up to 10 TOPS.
The Cixin P1 has a modern slate of features, including support for LPDDR5-6400 memory and 16x PCIe 4.0 expansion for dedicated GPUs/AI accelerators, and it can output at up to 4K 120FPS. The P1 was built to be a chameleon of a processor, developed under a strategy of "one chip for many uses". This applies to its firmware, which is uniquely compatible with Windows, Android, Kirin, Tongxin, and a host of other operating systems, foreign and domestic.
"One chip for many uses" was also the guiding light in determining Cixin P1's use cases. "Notebooks, mini PCs, all-in-one computers, desktops, home entertainment consoles, enterprise edge hosts, etc.," were cited as potential uses for the P1, and launch attendees saw the processor power notebooks and desktops. They also saw the many uses in person, as the company had benchmarks like 3DMark06 and the popular video game Genshin Impact running on the floor, along with other productivity and AI LLM demos. No numbers, such as benchmark results or Genshin's frames per second, were shown — though reporters qualitatively describe demos as running smoothly.
The Cixin P1 is a very unique processor. While it does not fulfill Beijing's goals of being a fully home-grown processor because it uses Arm CPU and GPU designs, the chip is specifically designed for the needs of the Chinese market and stands ready to enjoy some level of success. It also sadly does not meet Microsoft's arbitrary "AI PC" requirements. The P1's NPU on its own is only 30 TOPS — shy of the 40 TOPS target — though it's likely that Cixin could not care less about Windows Copilot+ certification.
Cixin is a very young company, first established in 2021, that has been growing thanks to investments from 15-20 public and private investment partners listed on its website. This freshness to the Chinese tech scene may limit widespread adoption early on, so we'll have to wait and see if Cixin manages to succeed in the huge, hungry tech market seeking separation from U.S. interference.
