Ist der "praktische" Wendepunkt für AI-Hardware erreicht?

Where exactly are the computing power boundaries of the physical space? The answer lies in the hottest AI hardware this year.

In 2025, AI hardware has become the core battlefield where manufacturers place their bets and capital rushes in. Despite the endless emergence of innovative forms, at this stage, the "main players" are relatively concentrated in three dominant sub - fields: learning machines, smartphones, and AI glasses.

Among them, AI education hardware, as a "ballast stone" with stable demand, continues to exert its strength; AI glasses, as representatives of the "new species", are rapidly booming globally, forming a product and price matrix covering multiple scenarios, and a "battle of a hundred glasses" has quietly begun; while smartphones, with the injection of system - level general model capabilities, are undergoing a profound AI transformation from function stacking to experience reconstruction.

In the diverse AI hardware ecosystem, the application and implementation of large models not only aim to improve efficiency and enhance the entertainment space but also open up the imagination of future human lifestyles.

At the main forum of the just - ended 2025 Yunqi Conference, Wu Yongming mentioned that large models are the next - generation operating systems, and the super AI cloud is the next - generation computer.

At this year's Yunqi Conference, Alibaba Cloud significantly upgraded its full - stack AI system, achieving a comprehensive technological update from AI large models to AI infrastructure, and upgraded its self - positioning to a "full - stack artificial intelligence service provider". Meanwhile, in the pioneer AI hardware special session "Intelligent Surge towards the New: Leading the New Wave of AI Hardware" jointly held by Alibaba Cloud and 36Kr at the 2025 Yunqi Conference, the future trends of AI hardware were also discussed.

Nowadays, creating a cutting - edge, practical, and continuously iterative and self - evolving intelligent terminal is no longer simply a matter of computing power stacking. Starting from aspects such as technology, scenarios, and user needs, what key elements are needed for the evolution of AI hardware?

What has AI hardware "reshaped"?

The mainstream voice in the consumer - grade intelligent hardware field is that all products are worth being redone with AI.

The value of "redoing" lies in that many "fuzzy demand areas" that are difficult to cover with traditional solutions can be accurately judged and extracted through the capabilities of large models, and a relatively optimal solution can be provided with a product - oriented mindset.

AI education hardware is a very typical track that can be "redone with AI". The reason why AI learning machines have witnessed a new boom in the era of large models is that they precisely address the deep - seated needs that traditional learning machines failed to meet: the expectations of parents and students for personalized and interactive learning. Traditional learning machines are limited to the function of "electronic teaching aids", emphasizing one - way knowledge transfer, while AI learning machines allow users to actively express their needs and dynamically plan their learning paths through intelligent interaction, thus reconstructing the product value.

Currently, leading manufacturers in the AI education field, such as TAL Education Group, Zuoyebang, and Seewo, have all carried out in - depth cooperation with Alibaba Cloud. Relying on the AI cloud services and large - model capabilities provided by Alibaba Cloud, these manufacturers are jointly promoting the intelligent upgrade of education scenarios and cooperatively developing personalized and immersive learning solutions for intelligent terminal users.

Taking the Seewo learning machine as an example, AI first improves the content search experience of the learning machine. Parents can make requests to the device through the built - in AI dialogue interface, reducing the difficulty of device interaction and the threshold for accessing high - quality educational resources. Secondly, Seewo, in cooperation with Alibaba Cloud, has launched a service to help students build personalized knowledge graphs. The built - in AI intelligent agent can better support personalized teaching.

In this process, a key word that cannot be ignored is "ecosystem". Nowadays, the new competitive focus of AI education manufacturers is to build an ecosystem with hardware as the entry point. By integrating content, data, and services, they further expand the scenario boundaries and user stickiness of educational intelligent terminals.

It's not just AI education manufacturers. Building an AI ecosystem has become a common choice in many intelligent hardware fields. Building an AI ecosystem not only promotes the upgrade of hardware functions but also reconstructs the value logic of intelligent devices from the bottom up - from single - execution to system - level collaboration, and from tool attributes to scenario - based services.

For example, in the smart home sector, Midea adheres to the strategy of integrating home appliances and home furnishings in its long - term exploration, enabling seamless collaboration among smart home appliances and home furnishing products that used to "fight separately". The central control screen, as the "intelligent brain" in the home scenario, is the best landing point for large models. With the AI ecosystem, it has the ability of integrated emotional interaction, greatly enhancing the user experience.

As a globally leading AI cloud platform service provider, Tuya Smart also believes that the in - depth integration of AI and IoT is driving the industry from "Internet of Everything" to "Intelligence of Everything". Hardware no longer responds passively but can actively sense the environment and make autonomous decisions. The key to achieving this leap lies in an open AI ecosystem chain. Tuya is building an AIoT hardware ecosystem to achieve device interconnection across brands and scenarios.

It can be seen that only by integrating into a broader technology and service ecosystem and upgrading AI hardware to an interactive, evolvable, and linkable part of the system can the potential of scenario - based intelligence and personalized services be unleashed.

Currently, the continuous emergence of various intelligent terminals and the continuous segmentation of functions highlight the urgency of building an AI ecosystem chain. No matter how powerful a single hardware device is, it always has scenario limitations and data barriers. The AI ecosystem chain can enable different terminals to operate collaboratively and share intelligence by connecting devices and integrating multi - modal capabilities.

In the future, through an open and collaborative ecosystem platform, coherent, natural, and proactive scenario - based services will become the mainstream in the physical world, which is also one of the key values of AI "reshaping".

Behind the computing power is the full - stack AI cloud service

Finding more scenarios for AI ecosystem collaboration in the physical world is not just about increasing computing power.

As the primary entry point for AI to consumers, smartphones are the most widely accepted and deeply experienced AI hardware by the public, and they also provide the largest application ecosystem for the implementation of large models in the physical space.

How to better integrate AI has become the next "battlefield" for mobile phone manufacturers. This technological evolution path is also very worthy of reference for other industries.

Among the top 10 global mobile phone manufacturers, 9 manufacturers, including Transsion, OPPO, vivo, and Honor, have carried out in - depth cooperation with Tongyi large models. This is by no means a coincidence.

For global mobile phone brands like Transsion, which are constantly expanding into emerging markets, Tongyi large models provide in - depth support for localized AI services. Alibaba Cloud has also been promoting the integration of large models with terminal hardware, systems, and scenarios in a "joint R & D model".

Taking Honor as an example, its Alpha strategy aims to build an AI terminal ecosystem and reshape traditional smartphones with AI. With the development of AI technology and agents, mobile phones will become "intelligent agent phones" with self - evolving capabilities and a better understanding of users. In addition to hardware and ecosystem capabilities, Honor is also promoting the intelligent evolution of the operating system. With system - level AI, MagicOS can become a super entry point. Through the YOYO intelligent agent, it can sense and understand the user's intentions and the surrounding environment, and the operating system can also "demand as needed" for hardware, software, applications, and services through the AI kernel capabilities, appropriately invoking and coordinating intelligent agents for users.

The fact that mobile phone manufacturers choose Alibaba Cloud and Tongyi large models also shows that what they need is not just a single technology or product service but a "computing power evolution" from the technical architecture end to the consumer - end experience: through the AI cloud infrastructure, AI development platform, AI applications, and solutions provided by Alibaba Cloud, AI hardware can have more powerful processing capabilities, higher security, and more natural interaction methods.

Globally, there are only a few super AI cloud providers that have both self - developed leading large models and powerful global cloud computing resources, and Alibaba Cloud is the only Chinese company among them.

The technological ecosystem brought by Tongyi large models and Alibaba Cloud's full - stack AI cloud services is a collaborative advantage of "model + infrastructure", enabling intelligent assistants to more accurately understand intentions, more smoothly achieve multi - modal interaction, and more reliably execute scenario - based services. In particular, Qwen3 - Max performs outstandingly in programming ability and tool - calling test sets. Combined with edge - side optimization technology, it can enable complex AI to run stably and quickly on mobile phones.

The model brings the imaginative space for intelligence, and the infrastructure enables the imagination to be smoothly realized through "division of labor and cooperation".

For example, mobile phone manufacturers are good at "bonding" hardware performance and operating system interactivity, and the core advantage of learning machine manufacturers lies in their accumulation in the education industry or hardware design. In the field of AI cloud infrastructure, they choose professional partners like Alibaba Cloud so that they can focus on product innovation and education content refinement in their areas of expertise.

A notable trend is that almost all the current hottest leading AI hardware manufacturers have "unilaterally" chosen Alibaba Cloud. The key lies in that Alibaba Cloud provides not a single product or technology but full - stack AI cloud services, including underlying AI computing power, Tongyi large models, and upper - layer development tools.

From this perspective, the core value of Alibaba Cloud lies in transcending the boundaries of single hardware manufacturers and product categories. Its "intelligent foundation" is more like providing an "AI brain" in complex and diverse sub - scenarios, enabling seamless connection among any intelligent terminals in the future, allowing data and services to follow people rather than being confined to their respective scenarios and intelligent terminals.

At this year's Yunqi Conference, Wu Yongming clarified Alibaba Cloud's strategic path: First, Tongyi Qianwen firmly adheres to the open - source and open route, aiming to create the "Android of the AI era"; second, build a super AI cloud as the "next - generation computer" to provide intelligent computing power networks globally. Currently, Alibaba Cloud operates China's first and globally leading AI infrastructure and cloud computing network, and it is one of the few super AI cloud computing platforms in the world that can achieve vertical integration of hardware and software.

The explosion of AI species: from novelty to practicality

Solving the "impossible triangle" in various industries has become the market's future expectation for intelligent hardware. In addition to the breakthroughs in AI technology itself, there are also three clear paths in hardware innovation.

The first path is to continuously expand the performance of hardware products and develop operating systems, making the products themselves a "gateway - level scenario" in general or vertical fields, capable of maximizing the capabilities of AI. Smartphones and AI learning machines fall into this category.

The second path focuses on the collaboration and integration among multiple devices. By opening interfaces for hardware to achieve edge - cloud collaboration and then introducing an "intelligent center", all hardware in a spatial scenario becomes smarter. This innovation method is becoming the mainstream in fields such as smart homes, smart buildings, and IoT, aiming to achieve flexible and seamless human - machine interaction through the characteristics of large models.

The third path is to create new AI hardware categories and find new ways of entertainment or efficiency improvement. This corresponds to the "explosion of AI species" this year.

Among the diverse hardware forms, AI glasses are undoubtedly one of the most eye - catching categories, attempting to redefine the "next - generation human - machine interaction gateway".

In this highly competitive track, brands such as Thunderbird Innovation and Halliday are seizing market positions with differentiated product logics.

In May this year, Thunderbird released products such as the Thunderbird X3 Pro, a full - featured color AR glasses, and is conducting technological breakthroughs with this sub - track as its future main form. At the same time, it also launched mature AI shooting glasses to quickly capture the market. In terms of AI capabilities, by cooperating with Alibaba Cloud's Tongyi large models, Thunderbird has created the industry's first customized multi - modal model for intelligent glasses, which can significantly improve the product's response speed and recognition accuracy, and based on this, it has developed multiple AI applications. Halliday released its domestic version products at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in July this year, quickly making its glasses a convenient tool in specific scenarios.

Compared with relatively mature forms such as smartphones and AI learning machines, although 2025 is the first year of the "battle of a hundred glasses", the AI glasses industry still faces many challenges.

First, in terms of overall machine design, both Thunderbird's logic and users' needs are to "make a good pair of glasses first". Factors such as weight, battery life, and power consumption need to be well - balanced, and the cost pressure brought by high performance cannot be ignored. Secondly, Thunderbird hopes to reconstruct the underlying system to enable AI and apps to collaborate.

In this regard, Thunderbird has deeply utilized Alibaba's Tongyi series of multi - modal large models, achieving a 98% accuracy rate in visual understanding and question - answering. Through system - level optimization, the time required from intention understanding to information return is controlled within only 1.3 seconds. This is also an obvious improvement in user experience after Thunderbird introduced Alibaba Cloud's capabilities.

In the second half of this year, it can be felt that AI glasses have started to move from "novelty" to "practicality". The key to success lies in whether their value can be verified in more high - frequency and essential scenarios. For example, real - life scenarios such as navigation, instant translation, and intelligent reminders will be transferred from mobile phones to intelligent glasses in a simpler and clearer interaction way. Only when AI capabilities and ecological services can be seamlessly integrated in these scenarios, and quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes, can the "new species" represented by AI glasses be upgraded from toys to indispensable daily tools.

The innovation wave of AI hardware is not limited to the three fastest - growing tracks of mobile phones, glasses, and learning machines. In the broader consumer and industrial fields, multiple categories are releasing value by solving the core needs of specific scenarios. For example, Qwanza Technology, which released a generative AI guitar at this conference, the technology enterprise Plaud, which specializes in AI meeting minutes products, the AI companion toy enterprise Haivivi, the AI GenZ social enterprise Bonjour!, the AI pet intelligence enterprise SATELLAI, and a series of emerging brands are all committed to depicting a diverse picture of future intelligent terminals.

The innovation wave of intelligent hardware and the concentrated emergence of large - model implementations come from the further improvement of the R & D efficiency of intelligent terminal products. The Tongyi multi - modal interaction development kit launched by Alibaba Cloud this year provides an end - to - end development platform by integrating the capabilities of large models such as voice, text, and vision, significantly reducing the development threshold. As a result, intelligent terminal manufacturers have shortened the product development cycle by an average of 50%, and also accelerated the process from the idea to the implementation of AI applications in each hardware ecosystem.

Currently, more than 100,000 intelligent terminal customers have connected to the Tongyi large models, including multiple AI new species in the fields of intelligent wearables and intelligent toys, such as Thunderbird Innovation, Mobvoi, Paradigm Intelligence, Tongxing Technology, Soundcore, Tom Cat, and Yuanluobo.

The intelligent foundation that integrates models, computing power, and development platforms paves the way for the imaginative experience of these new species. This also marks that intelligent hardware is no longer a collection of independent devices but will soon integrate into a "super organism" that can self - evolve and collaborate across devices.

Driven by Alibaba Cloud, the technological boundaries of intelligent hardware are gradually becoming clear: no longer pursuing "all - around" but differentiating and deepening scenarios in product innovation. First, make AI practical and indispensable in hardware, and then let these intelligent agents that can think and execute co - evolve with the cloud brain, seamlessly integrating into life and becoming everyone's all - around "intelligent assistant".