IFA 2018: A Huge Number of AI-Powered Home Appliances on Display
AI Declaration of Asia's Home Appliance Powerhouses


The Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA), the world's largest consumer electronics fair, will be held in Berlin, Germany, from August 31st to September 5th. First held in 1924, IFA celebrates its 58th anniversary this year. IFA is Europe's largest trade fair specializing in consumer electronics and multimedia, attracting numerous buyers from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, where fierce competition among home appliance manufacturers unfolds. Asian companies, particularly Korean and Chinese companies, also set up booths at IFA to showcase their technological prowess.


LG Electronics: "Smart and Free with AI"
LG Electronics Vice Chairman Cho Seong-jin and President Park Il-pyeong delivered a keynote speech on the 31st titled, “Think Wise. Be Free: Living Freer with AI.”
Vice Chairman Cho expressed his expectations for AI, saying, “AI will show new possibilities for people to pursue a freer and more valuable life.” He also predicted that “artificial intelligence will integrate all of our living spaces and times through the combination of edge computing and big data, and improved connectivity through 5G.”

President Park stated, "AI must evolve through continuous interaction with users." He also emphasized, "AI will connect diverse products and services, enabling customers to benefit from them in all areas of their lives, anytime, anywhere."

LG Electronics has been equipping all of its home appliances with wireless internet since last year to implement an artificial intelligence smart home, and the global cumulative sales of smart home appliances equipped with wireless internet recently surpassed 5 million units.
True to its keynote address, LG Electronics set up an 'LG ThinQ Zone' within the IFA exhibition hall, showcasing a variety of home appliances and robots equipped with artificial intelligence technology.


Huawei Unveils AI-Specific Speaker and Processor
On the 31st, Huawei CEO Richard Yu delivered a keynote speech titled "The Ultimate Power of Mobile AI." In his speech, Yu unveiled the "HUAWEI AI Cube," an AI speaker and 4G router with built-in Alexa, Amazon's AI platform. This marks Huawei's official entry into the smart speaker market. The Huawei AI Cube is designed to allow users to more conveniently access the internet and control smart devices.
The Huawei AI Cube can handle numerous connected tasks that occur in smart homes by combining Huawei's communication technology with Alexa.

According to market research firm Canalys, global demand for smart speakers is expected to reach 225 million units by 2020, more than doubling from the current level. Huawei plans to secure a prominent position in this rapidly growing smart speaker market.
Huawei also unveiled its improved mobile AI SoC, the Kirin 980. The Kirin 980 is the world's first commercial SoC manufactured using TSMC's 7nm process. Equipped with dual NPUs, the Kirin 980 enhances on-device AI experiences with enhanced processing power and intelligent technologies.
The Kirin 980's dual NPU delivers image recognition processing performance that surpasses the sum of two individual NPUs. It can recognize up to 4,500 images per minute, a 120% improvement over the Kirin 970. It also supports common AI frameworks such as Caffee, Tensorflow, and Tensorflow Lite, providing a set of tools that simplify the complex task of on-device AI engineering, allowing developers to easily leverage the cutting-edge processing power of the dual NPU.


Lenovo Unveils AI Assistant for Smart Homes
Lenovo has introduced a new smart home device, 'Smart Home Essentials'.

Lenovo's Smart Home Essentials integrates IT technology into the home, creating a smart environment. Combined with the recently released Lenovo Smart Display, it offers a one-stop shopping experience with a multi-platform AI ecosystem. In particular, the Lenovo Link app serves as a central control center, helping automate and control specific tasks. Furthermore, voice recognition capabilities can be utilized at home through the AI-powered Smart Display, which is compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

Smart Home Essentials includes the Lenovo Smart Plug, which is compatible with other smart devices, the Lenovo Smart Camera, which allows nighttime security surveillance via infrared, and the Lenovo Smart Bulb, which can be remotely controlled by users via the Lenovo Link app.


The dawn of the 8K TV era
LG Electronics' LG 8K OLED TV, which was first unveiled in the world at IFA 2018, is receiving a series of awards.
It has received favorable reviews from various sources, including the ‘Best Product of the Exhibition’ award from British IT media outlets ‘Techrader’ and ‘Stuff’, the US-based leading IT media outlet ‘Ubergizmo’, and the global IT media outlet ‘GadgetMatch’. The European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA), the highest authority in the European imaging and sound field, held a separate awards ceremony at IFA 2018 and awarded the LG OLED TV the 'EISA Premium OLED TV' award.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics installed outdoor advertisements in three locations in Berlin, Germany for two days from August 31 to September 1 and held a digital campaign called 'Perfect Reality' to announce the launch of 'QLED 8K'.
Samsung Electronics' QLED 8K TV combines ultra-high-resolution picture quality with the strengths of quantum dot materials. It features outstanding contrast ratio, brightness, and detailed color expression, even on large screens, creating a three-dimensional picture quality. This QLED 8K TV features "AI upscaling" technology, which automatically converts low-resolution images to 8K quality, optimizing both picture quality and sound to suit the content's characteristics.