Technology
Arm's AI-powered graphics tech is coming to phones next year—starting with Xiaomi
The chipmaker's new Mali G2-Ultra GPU brings PC-like rendering acceleration to mobile devices, enabling games that run faster and smoother without draining the battery.
The Verge
The Xiaomi 18 Fold, launching today in mainland China with Arm's new Mali G2-Ultra NX graphics processor, marks the beginning of a shift in how mobile games look and perform. After five years of engineering, Arm has embedded AI-native graphics acceleration directly into its GPU—a capability that borrows heavily from Nvidia's DLSS playbook and promises to bring features once exclusive to high-end PC gaming down to smartphones and tablets.
How it works#
The Mali G2-Ultra NX bundles several hardware-accelerated rendering techniques that collectively Arm calls "neural graphics." These include AI upscaling (reconstructing images at higher resolution from lower-resolution renders), frame generation (synthesizing new frames between existing ones), and ray reconstruction—similar to what Nvidia calls DLSS 4.5.
Working in combination, these methods allow phones to render fewer pixels and frames than they actually display, letting AI fill in the gaps. The result, according to Arm, can be up to four times the framerate when all techniques are applied together. However, frame generation in particular typically adds latency, so the perceived speedup may feel less dramatic than the numbers suggest.
Roll-out will be staged. Early games will lean on AI upscaling; frame generation arrives in early 2027, with denoising following shortly after.
What this means for battery life and performance#
Arm's Chris Bergey, executive vice president of Edge AI, told The Verge that the entire phone consuming these new chips will draw no more than 2.5 watts, with the GPU using roughly 1.5 watts. This efficiency opens up novel gaming scenarios: rather than draining a battery in 30 minutes, a player could sustain 1080p at 60 frames per second for three hours.
Device makers have a choice—they can either deploy the extra power budget toward higher visual fidelity and frame rates, or use less power to extend battery life. The Xiaomi Pad 9 Pro Max tablet, with more cooling surface area and a larger battery, demonstrates the upper end: Arm is showcasing 3.2K resolution at 120 frames per second on that device.
"This is not overclocking, this is mainstream," Bergey said, noting that neural graphics will appear across Arm's Premium and Pro configurations, not just flagship phones.
