Nordic Semiconductor showed at this week’s CES in Las Vegas how it is bringing AI functionality to the smallest battery-powered IoT devices.

With low-power edge AI, the Norwegian company says it is accelerating the arrival of devices with integrated edge AI intelligence, combining energy efficiency with ease of use for developers.

“AI factories train intelligence, but Nordic deploys it on device, at the edge, where the world happens,” said Vegard Wollan, CEO at Nordic Semiconductor. “Edge AI is no longer optional, it’s the only way to deliver safety, privacy and sustainability at scale. Nordic’s edge AI enables millisecond decisions without round-trip latency to the cloud, ensures compliance through local processing, and delivers radically improved battery life for billions of connected devices. This is the new standard for ultra-low-power edge AI and Nordic is defining it.”

In 2023, Nordic acquired Atlazo and its Axon technology. The nRF54LM20B SoC (www.nordicsemi.com/Products/nRF54LM20B) is the first large-memory member of the nRF54L series, integrating the Axon neural processing unit (NPU), an efficient AI hardware accelerator, to supercharge demanding edge AI workloads. Axon is said to deliver up to seven times faster performance and up to eight times higher energy efficiency versus competing products for tasks such as sound classification, keyword spotting and image-based detection.

The nRF54LM20B SoC pairs the Axon NPU with 2Mbyte NVM, 512kbyte RAM, a 128MHz Arm Cortex-M33 plus Risc-V coprocessor, high-speed USB, up to 66 GPIOs, and Nordic’s fourth-generation low-power 2.4GHz radio supporting Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth channel sounding, Matter over Thread and more.

The Neuton models are tiny CPU-run edge AI models that are typically under 5kbyte and up to ten times smaller, faster and more efficient than other CPU-run models. Nordic’s edge AI lab helps developers generate custom Neuton models for anomaly detection, activity and gesture recognition, biometric monitoring and more, delivering privacy-preserving, real-time intelligence on tiny batteries and constrained memory, without cloud dependency.

With Nordic’s edge AI lab and Neuton models (www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Technologies/Edge-AI), intelligence moves from concept to reality without complexity. One recent deployment illustrates this: A global supply chain upgraded its smart tracking devices with AI models created in the edge AI lab, enabling detection of real handling events such as shock, shaking and transportation directly on an nRF54L SoC. These AI-driven insights were rolled out across an entire fleet without operational disruption, thanks to Nordic’s nRF cloud lifecycle services.

“With Nordic edge AI lab, Neuton models, and the Axon NPU, Nordic makes advanced on-device AI practical for every embedded developer,” said Oyvind Strom, executive vice president at Nordic Semiconductor (www.nordicsemi.com). “Developers get the simplicity to move fast, and the disruptive performance to scale from wearables to industrial sensing, all enabled within Nordic’s trusted ultra-low-power hardware.”

As intelligence moves to the edge, the need for OTA management and deep observability is growing. At the same time, cloud-based lifecycle services remain critical for device management, embedded observability and location services. Manufacturers increasingly need continuous insight into device performance, not just to improve products in real time, but to meet growing regulatory and customer requirements. Using data from deployed devices enhances features and optimises performance without disrupting the user experience. This ensures connected products can evolve securely and efficiently throughout their lifecycle.

Nordic’s edge AI lLab and custom Neuton models are available today for Nordic wireless nRF54 SoCs and cellular IoT SiP modules. The nRF54LM20B SoC with Axon NPU is sampling to selected customers, with broad availability for development expected early in the second quarter of this year.