Generative AI Applications to Continue Accelerating in 2024, Posing a Threat to All-Day Battery Life
By Dr. Raj Talluri, President & CEO
If I had to sum up the tech landscape in one phrase, it would be “the year of AI.” Many in our industry were already aware of what AI can do, but the introduction of ChatGPT, and generative AI applications like Stable Diffusion and Lensa, has shown mainstream society how AI can and will impact our daily lives.
As CEO of a company inventing and commercializing technology for consumer devices, I spend a lot of time thinking about AI, its proliferation, its potential and its many use cases — but from a slightly different perspective. I think about it in terms of power consumption.
In addition to mobile gaming and social media (looking at you, TikTok), many common applications leverage AI and use a ton of processing power, and therefore take a heavy toll on the battery. Almost all consumers of these applications run them on their smartphones. There has been a shift in generational usage, and Gen Z in particular wants to consume all their applications and entertainment on their phones. But here is the rub — they still want their phones to be small enough to carry in their pockets.
As a result, smartphone manufacturers cannot make devices any bigger than they currently are. And these same companies want to add more and more new features, such as improved cameras, higher resolution displays, better CPU and GPU processing and more memory, all of which takes up more space and power inside of phones that can’t get any bigger.
Meanwhile, mobile gaming is running at higher and higher framerates to create a better user experience. Applications like TikTok push all content creation, filtering and even editing to the phone so ByteDance is not left having to pay an unimaginable data center bill. Add the latest AI-based applications and large language models running on your phone, like Llama 2 and Lensa, and you’ll be lucky to get through a few hours of phone usage without having to charge — unacceptable in today’s hyper-connected world.
For those of you who will say that you can just run applications in the cloud, remember that means 5G connectivity all the time, a monthly subscription fee (one application can run $10 a month) and that’s on top of what you already pay monthly for your smartphone and service. Consumers have shown they will not pay fees if they don’t have to, and high-bandwidth connectivity is inconsistent. So, the burden goes back to the phone’s processing power and its battery.
Because the battery cannot get any bigger even though we will continue to need and use more energy, we have reached a tipping point where battery technology must fundamentally change — something that has not happened in the past three decades.
This is why I became President and CEO of Enovix Corporation. We are developing a new battery that can replace graphite with silicon, which increases battery energy density and life by 20–30% and is a widely available and sustainable material. My prediction for 2024 is that the need for battery power will continue to increase at a rapid clip and that current battery technology will no longer be enough. I see new innovations entering the battery market to help advance this technology and continue to meet user demands.
Next week we’ll be attending the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where we’ll be showing new demos, new devices, and new data around how battery tech is trailing smartphone innovation–and how we’re going to change that. Come visit us at The Venetian Las Vegas (contact sales@enovix.com to arrange a meeting).
So, take out your smartphone, download that app, play your favorite games, upload your new 4K video to show your friends, and toast to the bright future of Enovix battery technology that will keep you powered and connected!
