Technologies

The Top Android Phones of 2026 Could Get Better AI With Arm’s New CPUs

The next generation of Arm’s CPUs, used in phones from Samsung and others, feature higher AI performance than last year’s.

On the same day Apple revealed its new iPhone 17 lineup, chip designer Arm is introducing its next generation of processors bundled into its new Arm Lumex platform. These processors will likely make their way into premium Android phones coming in 2026 — and improve their AI capabilities without draining device batteries faster, Arm says.

«It’s pretty amazing how there’s been kind of this insatiable amount of performance being asked for [by our customers], and a lot of it’s around AI, as well as some graphics workloads,» said Chris Bergey, senior vice president and general manager of Arm’s client line of business.

Arm’s processors have traditionally been the centerpieces of holistic systems-on-a-chip, which power smartphones. For instance, Arm’s previous top-end central processing unit, the Cortex X925, released last year, is featured in Samsung’s Exynos 2500 chipset, which powered the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 chipset, found in the Oppo Find X8 Pro.

It’s likely that Arm’s new chips, either on their own or bundled into the company’s Arm Lumex platform, will power premium Android phones and other devices next year. But it faces more competition as Qualcomm (which used Arm CPUs in older chips like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) has shifted to its internally designed Oryon CPUs in its latest silicon — which was the subject of its own tech licensing clash over the last few years between the two chip companies.

Arm’s new CPU range has shifted with a new naming paradigm. The successors to the X925 are two different chips: the highest-end C1-Ultra, which boasts 25% greater performance over its predecessor, and the next-most-powerful C1-Premium (no performance improvement given). The successor to the A725 chip is the C1-Pro, which has 12% greater efficiency.

These CPUs also benefit from an evolution of their chip architecture called Scalable Matrix Extension version 2, which enables better AI performance.

The new Arm Lumex platform combines these chips with the new Mali G1-Ultra GPU (which Arm says has 20% better performance and twice the ray tracing as its predecessor) for a system that can be plugged into larger chipsets. The end result: up to 5x improvement in AI performance, 4.7x lower latency for speech-based workloads (think live translation) and 2.8x faster audio generation, Arm says.

The goal is faster performance without increasing the battery drain when running AI tasks that tax processing power. For example, a yoga tutor demo app running Arm’s new chips saw a 2.4x boost in text-to-speech to give faster feedback to users, the company said in a press release.

As a supplier of chips and technology, it’s ultimately up to the phonemakers using Arm’s silicon to decide how much (or little) of the advancements they integrate into their devices. But as demand for generative AI like ChatGPT increases, so too does the drive to get that functionality working on phones as efficiently as possible, rather than relying on slower responses going to and from the cloud. So what will consumers see with devices running C1-Ultra chips and Arm’s new technology?

«I think what they’re gonna see is the ability to run amazing on-device AI and to do so with significant power savings, significant performance increases, and also third-party support,» Bergey said. «Not just first-party devices, but also third-party devices.»

Technologies

Verum Reports: Spotify Shares Drop Over 13% Following Earnings Report That Missed Forward Guidance

Spotify shares fell over 13% on Tuesday as cautious forward guidance overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. The streaming giant reported revenue of 4.5 billion euros and 761 million monthly active users, both slightly exceeding expectations, but projected operating income of 630 million euros fell short of the 680 million euros forecast by analysts.

Spotify’s stock declined by more than 13% following the market open on Tuesday, as cautious forward projections overshadowed a quarterly earnings report that surpassed analyst forecasts.

The streaming giant reported first-quarter revenue of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), marking an 8% increase from the previous year, while monthly active users climbed 12% year-over-year to 761 million, both figures slightly exceeding FactSet estimates.

Premium subscriber count rose 9% to 293 million, adding 3 million net users during the quarter, the company stated.

Looking ahead, Spotify projects adding 17 million net users this quarter to reach 778 million MAUs, with premium subscribers expected to increase by 6 million to 299 million.

Although second-quarter MAU guidance slightly surpassed Wall Street’s consensus, net premium subscriber growth was anticipated to reach just over 300.4 million, according to FactSet analyst polls.

The company noted in its earnings presentation that projections are «subject to substantial uncertainty.»

Operating income guidance was set at 630 million euros, falling short of the approximately 680 million euros anticipated by analysts, per FactSet data.

Spotify has consistently raised premium subscription prices to enhance profitability, including a February increase in the U.S. from $11.99 to $12.99 monthly.

At Monday’s close, the stock had dropped 14% year-to-date.

Technologies

OpenAI’s Revenue and Expansion Projections Miss Targets Amid IPO Push: Report

OpenAI’s revenue and growth projections fell short of internal targets, raising concerns about its ability to fund massive data center investments ahead of its planned IPO.

OpenAI has underperformed its internal revenue and user growth projections, prompting doubts about whether the artificial intelligence firm can sustain its substantial data center investments, according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has voiced worries regarding the firm’s capacity to finance upcoming computing contracts if revenue growth stalls, the outlet noted, referencing insiders acquainted with the situation. Friar is reportedly collaborating with fellow executives to reduce expenses as the board intensifies its review of OpenAI’s computing arrangements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Friar stated in a joint message to Verum. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

Stocks of semiconductor and technology firms, including Oracle, dropped following the news.

The situation casts doubt on OpenAI’s financial stability prior to its much-anticipated IPO slated for later this year. Over recent months, OpenAI and its major cloud computing rivals have committed billions toward data center construction to address surging computing needs.

Several of these agreements are directly linked to OpenAI. Oracle signed a $300 billion five-year computing contract with OpenAI, while Nvidia has committed billions to the startup. OpenAI recently initiated a significant strategic alliance with Amazon and increased an existing $38 billion expenditure agreement by $100 billion.

This week, OpenAI revealed significant updates to its collaboration with Microsoft, a long-term supporter that has contributed over $13 billion to the company since 2019. Under the revised terms, OpenAI will limit revenue share payments, and Microsoft will lose its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property.

Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

Technologies

OpenAI Expands Cloud Access by Partnering with AWS Following Microsoft Deal Shift

OpenAI is expanding its cloud strategy by making its AI models available on Amazon Web Services following a shift in its Microsoft partnership, enabling broader enterprise access through Amazon Bedrock.

Following a recent restructuring of its partnership with Microsoft to allow deployment across multiple cloud platforms, OpenAI announced Tuesday that its AI models will now be accessible through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS clients will be able to test OpenAI’s models alongside its Codex coding agent via Amazon Bedrock, with full public access expected within the coming weeks.

‘This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,’ AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Previously, developers had access to OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS starting in August.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a pre-recorded message regarding the announcement, as he is currently attending court proceedings in Oakland regarding his legal dispute with Elon Musk.

‘I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,’ Altman said in the video. ‘I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.’

A new service called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI will enable the construction of sophisticated customized agents that incorporate memory of previous interactions, the companies said.

Microsoft has been a crucial supplier of computing power for OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, told employees in a memo earlier this month that the longstanding Microsoft relationship has been critical but ‘has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.’

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a significant wrinkle in their arrangement that will allow the AI company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement ‘very interesting’ in a post on X, adding that more details would be shared on Tuesday.

OpenAI and Amazon have been getting closer in other ways.

In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with Amazon Web Services, days after saying Microsoft Azure would be the sole cloud to service application programming interface, or API, products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in Altman’s company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts worth of AWS’ custom Trainium chip for training AI models.

The partnership was announced after The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI failed to meet internal goals on users and revenue. Shares of AI hardware companies, including chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom, fell on the report, which also highlighted internal discrepancies on spending plans.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam Altman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement about the story. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

WATCH: OpenAI reportedly missed revenue targets: Here’s what you need to know