Chinese technology giant Xiaomi on Monday unveiled three new in-house Xring chips, significantly advancing its semiconductor development efforts. The company introduced the Xring O3 smartphone processor, the Xring O100 artificial intelligence accelerator, and the Xring D100 chip for autonomous driving. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) will produce the flagship Xring O3 and the Xring D100 using its advanced 3-nanometer production technology.[live+2]
Xiaomi Strengthens Semiconductor Independence
Xiaomi's move to develop more in-house chips aims to reduce its reliance on external suppliers like Qualcomm and MediaTek. This strategy also gives Xiaomi greater control over product features and strengthens its supply chain.The company has invested over 21 billion yuan, or about $3.1 billion, in Xring chip development since restarting its program in 2021.Xiaomi plans to invest at least 50 billion yuan, or $7 billion, over a decade in this effort.[live+5]
The company's semiconductor design unit has grown to more than 3,000 employees, up from 2,500 last year.Xiaomi sees chips, operating systems, and artificial intelligence as the foundation for its future competitiveness and long-term ecosystem growth.This includes its smartphone and smart home businesses, as well as its rapidly expanding electric vehicle division.[live+3]
New Xring Chips for Phones, AI, and Cars
The Xring O3 is Xiaomi's latest proprietary smartphone processor. It features a 10-core "all-big" CPU architecture and a 16-core G2-Ultra NX GPU.The chip also includes a quad-core Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that delivers up to 200 TOPS of tensor performance for on-device AI models.The Xring O3 supports ultra-fast LPDDR6 memory.[thenews+3]
Xiaomi expects the Xring O3 to power its upcoming flagship folding phone, the Xiaomi 18 Fold, and the Pad 9 Pro Max.These devices are scheduled to launch in China in September, with preorders for the foldable phone already open.Shipment targets for the folding phone range from 200,000 to 300,000 units.[timesofindia+7]
For artificial intelligence, Xiaomi introduced the Xring O100, a 6-nanometer neural processing unit.This chip is designed for high-bandwidth edge Large Language Model (LLM) deployment and supports Xiaomi's MiMo large language model on consumer devices.The Xring O100 stacks chip and memory vertically to achieve 1.22 terabytes per second of near-memory bandwidth.It is intended for on-device AI in phones, cars, and robots.[timesofindia+5]
Xiaomi also unveiled the Xring D100, a 3-nanometer chip specifically for autonomous driving.This smart-driving AI chip features a 20-core high-performance CPU and a 16-core NPU.It supports up to 160 gigabytes of unified memory and can run large language models with as many as 200 billion parameters locally.The D100 has completed validation and is scheduled for commercial use in 2027.Currently, Xiaomi's electric vehicle models largely rely on Nvidia Thor chips for their smart-driving systems.[cnevpost+5]
Past Efforts and Future Outlook
This latest announcement builds on Xiaomi's previous chip development efforts. The company launched its first proprietary smartphone processor, the Xring O1, in May 2025.Cumulative shipments of devices powered by the Xring O1, including smartphones, tablets, and watches, have surpassed 1 million units since its launch.About 150,000 of these were smartphones.[live+4]
Before the Xring series, Xiaomi had developed other chips like the Surge S1 in 2017, a 28-nanometer SoC.It also created the Surge C1 image signal processor, Surge P1 fast-charging chip, and Surge G1 battery management chip.[nomadsemi+2]
The introduction of these new chips comes as the global smartphone market faces a downturn, with shipments expected to decline by 14% in 2026.Xiaomi sold 65 million handsets in the first half of 2026, with an average price of 1,329 yuan.The company's electric vehicle business generated 23.9 billion yuan in revenue and delivered 104,199 vehicles in the second quarter.Developing in-house chips helps Xiaomi differentiate its products and compete in the premium smartphone and electric vehicle markets.[live+5]
