It’s increasingly likely that a ChatGPT smartphone prototype is on the way, at the very least. Previously, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo listed the device’s development and some of the proposed specs. The same source now details pretty much everything the phone will include, hardware-wise.
The only thing missing from the roster is camera and microphone hardware, both of which are likely to be fairly advanced. They’re also probably not going to be standard fare, since an AI-focused phone would hew closer toward giving the device eyes and ears rather than capturing mundane human memories.
Calling ChatGPT
The proposed hardware includes a custom-tweaked MediaTek chipset based on the company’s 2nm Dimensity 9600. The included dual NPU system will handle different versions of AI inference, according to the report. It makes sense — you’d want an AI-specific phone to be as versatile as possible.
LPDDR6 RAM is being proposed, along with support for UFS 5.0. The quantities for RAM and storage have yet to be listed, but they’re both likely to be extensive… and expensive. At a guess, we’d say 12GB of RAM at least, with a minimum of 512GB of storage. 1TB or 2TB would be more useful, assuming the device would host a localised version of ChatGPT.
Our guess at the computer vision system seems to be on the money, too. OpenAI is said to be considering an upgraded image signal processor specifically for “visual perception”. Lenses to accompany the ISP aren’t known, but unless you’re looking at capturing data for queries at 30x zoom, it probably won’t need a 200MP sensor. The other hardware is likely to drive the price up, so saving here would be another sensible move.
More specific is the presence of a protected Kernel-based Virtual Machine (pKVM), something to help the AI environment to function without it wiping your phone because you asked ChatGPT a stupid question. It could also keep your data more protected, we suppose.
There will definitely be a subscription component along with the hardware price tag. Buying a ChatGPT smartphone just to use the free tier wouldn’t be a sensible move. However, the company’s ambition of selling 30 million units between 2027 and 2028 seems… well, extremely ambitious. We’ll have to see how Sam Altman’s company does, given what it seems to be working with so far.
