Arm's bid for smarter, AI-powered phones and PCs begins with Lumex

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Optimistically, Arm’s new Lumex CPU platform might give us a touch at what to anticipate for upcoming Home windows on Arm PCs: 4 tiers of CPU energy, plus an improved ray-tracing engine and graphics upscaling.

Arm says that its new Lumex C1-series chips will ship 25 % extra efficiency than the Cortex X925 collection of processors it launched in Might 2024. Just like the X925, the most recent Lumex C1 cores are being optimized with 3nm course of applied sciences in thoughts, with bodily implementations and foundry collaborations to hurry clients to market.

(Whereas Arm has hinted at constructing its personal bodily cores for years, nonetheless, firm representatives would say solely that it consists of “close to production-ready bodily implementations for companions” and is “not a chip.”)

The Lumex platform is Arm’s model for smartphones. PC-specific Arm chips will likely be branded as “Niva” underneath Arm’s new naming scheme, although they are going to share some widespread options with the Lumex cores. Qualcomm, which really makes the Arm processors, makes use of the “Snapdragon” model, which can virtually definitely proceed.

Arm chips energy the overwhelming majority of the world’s smartphones, as Arm licenses its designs to clients who can select to deliver the Arm cores to market or take an architectural license and design suitable however in any other case model new designs of their very own making. That’s the method Apple and Qualcomm have taken — who, along with designing smartphones, have introduced Arm into the Mac OS house in addition to Home windows on Arm PCs. Although Qualcomm and Arm have had their authorized variations over licensing Arm’s cores — which have since been settled — an Arm consultant declined to remark when requested if any ongoing authorized points would stop Qualcomm from taking a license.

<img decoding="async" data-wp-class--hide="state.isContentHidden" data-wp-class--show="state.isContentVisible" data-wp-init="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async--click="actions.showLightbox" data-wp-on-async--load="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async-window--resize="callbacks.setButtonStyles" src="https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Arm-Lumex-one-pager.png?w=1200" alt="Arm Lumex one pager" class="wp-image-2904041" width="1200" height="638" loading="lazy"/> Arm’s new Lumex CPU cores proceed delivering doble-digit efficiency features, the corporate stated. Arm

And you'll, apparently, see the Lumex in additional than simply PCs. “So the Lumex platform goes to energy flagship smartphones by way of to PCs and tablets,” stated James McNiven, the vp of product administration for Arm, in a press briefing.

Smartphones, although, have their very own calls for: low energy, which Arm’s RISC structure was designed for; and maximizing native AI. The Cortex C1 collection consists of what Arm calls Scalable Matrix Extension 2 (SME2), utilizing the Arm v9.3 instruction set.

Arm doesn’t use a devoted NPU. As a substitute, it makes use of a expertise referred to as KleidiAI that primarily makes use of software program libraries to handle AI-specific capabilities contained in the CPU, regardless of which model of the Arm structure is current. Within the C1 CPU cluster, Arm says, you’ll see a 5X uplift in AI efficiency.

Arm says that may enhance efficiency on apps that all the time have some type of AI expertise operating, akin to audio technology, digital camera inferencing, or pc imaginative and prescient. Particularly, Arm is claiming over 4.7 occasions enchancment in latency, speech recognition, and classical massive language mannequin duties, and about 2.8 occasions sooner audio technology.

The opposite factor Arm has been recognized for is that it principally pioneered the idea of efficiency and effectivity cores, a technique referred to as “Massive-Little.” However with the Lumex, that’s been taken to a brand new stage with the addition of a brand new “premium” core. Now, there are 4 completely different tiers of CPU cores: the C1-Extremely, the C1-Premium, the C1-Professional, and the C1-Nano.

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Nothing’s actually modified all that a lot: The Extremely and Premium cores are merely two tiers of “efficiency” cores, whereas the Professional and Nano ship completely different ranges of effectivity. Arm executives stated that the Premium core may stand in for the Extremely cores on non-flagship, cheaper gadgets, because it presents related efficiency to the Extremely, however in a 35 % smaller space. The C1 Professional “improves” upon the Cortex A75 by way of efficiency and effectivity, McNiven stated, whereas the Nano has the “smallest footprint” and can play a task in each flagship and entry-level gadgets, he stated. General, Arm executives stated that the on-device AI is thrice extra energy environment friendly than the earlier implementations, and the Professional is 12 % extra energy environment friendly on the similar frequency.

Arm can be introducing a brand new GPU, the Mali G1-Extremely, which can promise 20 % higher graphics efficiency, twice the ray-tracing efficiency, and 20 % sooner inferencing for AI processing than the sooner Immortalis-G925. The Mali G1-Extremely may also devour much less energy, because the block is by itself energy island with much less leakage when idle.

Particularly, Arm is claiming that body charges on ray-traced video games will likely be 40 % larger than its predecessor, a part of transferring to a “single-ray” mannequin for improved effectivity and extra life like lighting,” McNiven stated. The brand new Mali core additionally consists of upscaling — rapidly rendering at a decrease decision for improved body charge, then upscaling it for higher visible high quality — however it doesn't use the AI-generated frames of some desktop GPUs.

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“One of many examples that we've been seeing lately was among the new ray tracing benchmarks like [UL’s 3DMark] Photo voltaic Bay Excessive, and I feel that we see there as much as a doubling in efficiency, as a result of it's so ray tracing heavy. So it actually does depend upon simply the quantity of ray-tracing content material,” McNiven stated.

One concept behind the Lumex platform, executives stated, was to maneuver sure cloud-based AI capabilities on to the system. Particularly, a big language mannequin on the planet of Krafton’s Inzoi (a non secular successor to The Sims) was run on-device on the GDC convention, they stated, in addition to a “coach” that watched you play in Tencent’s Honor of Kings and supplied recommendation. A serious on-line fee supplier can be working to place agentic AI on system to deal with fee processing throughout peak occasions, as an alternative of committing to costly, back-end cloud servers, stated Chris Bergey, the senior vp of the shopper line of enterprise at Arm.

“In case your system is able to operating a big language mannequin, you've an additional technique of interacting with the sport that augments your expertise,” McNiven stated. “However if you happen to don’t have it, the sport remains to be playable.”