MediaTek, a leading semiconductor company, has announced the upcoming release of its latest chip, the Dimensity 9400. Designed to power premium Android phones set to launch in 2025, this chip aims to provide enhanced support for advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tools. MediaTek is intensifying its competition with Qualcomm in the high-end phone market by focusing on generative AI capabilities and ensuring seamless integration for device manufacturers.
The Dimensity 9400 introduces the Dimensity Agentic AI Engine, a framework that standardizes the application of agentic AI. This next wave of AI models enables devices to learn and plan actions autonomously. However, the AI engine is not an AI agent like Apple’s Siri or Google Gemini. Instead, it serves as a tool to assist device-makers and developers in creating their own AI agents or other AI-powered applications.
According to Finbarr Moynihan, MediaTek’s Vice President of Corporate Marketing, the company has been developing the Dimensity Agentic AI engine for some time. He emphasized the need to make AI capabilities more user-friendly for consumers. Agentic AI acts as an on-device AI agent that can process complex user requests and translate them into actionable outcomes.
While specific phone models utilizing the Dimensity 9400 were not disclosed, Moynihan hinted that Oppo and Vivo are expected to announce devices shortly after the chip’s reveal. The exact timeline for the integration of agentic AI features into phones remains uncertain but is a possibility.
In the competitive landscape of AI-on-phones, Apple is set to introduce its Apple Intelligence upgrade for the iPhone 16 series, while Samsung is likely to incorporate its next version of Galaxy AI on the Galaxy S25 series. MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 builds upon the generative AI capabilities of its predecessor, the Dimensity 9300. The new chip features a neural processing unit that delivers improved performance for image generation and faster response times when interacting with large language models.
The Dimensity 9400 also boasts 35% better power efficiency for AI tasks and can run multimodal AI at the edge with impressive speed. Additionally, it supports tri-fold displays, a feature currently found only in Huawei’s Mate XT Ultimate Design. The chip’s move to a 3nm process enhances single-thread and multi-core performance, while LPDDR5X memory offers improved performance and lower power consumption. Gaming experiences are also enhanced with the inclusion of Arm’s new 12-core Immortalis G925 GPU.
Furthermore, the Dimensity 9400 provides better audio capabilities, supporting up to six microphones with 24-bit audio recording. This improvement aligns with Apple’s recent introduction of subject-selective audio recording modes on its iPhone 16 Pro models.
It is worth noting that the Dimensity 9400 does not natively support satellite messaging on the chip. Phone manufacturers interested in this feature will need to utilize a separate MediaTek chip for non-terrestrial network connectivity.