Amazon's AZ2 Neural Edge Chip Has Face And Voice Recognition Technology

The AZ2 chip comes with a new focus Amazon calls Ambient Intelligence. (photo: doc. amazon)

JAKARTA - Amazon has just announced its newest line of devices, one of which is the Echo Show 15, which is an interactive touch screen that can be a virtual assistant in your home. But this time, the device underwent a significant change from its predecessor.

The company provides the Echo Show 15 with its new CPU which comes with several interesting applications. It's Amazon's AZ2 Neural Edge Chip, built on the machine learning interface that premiered with the AZ1. Allows Amazon devices to better recognize the user's voice, but also have facial recognition capabilities.

The AZ2 chip comes with a new focus Amazon calls Ambient Intelligence. Citing The Verge, Wednesday, September 29, the AZ2 chip is capable of performing 22 times the number of operations per second compared to the AZ1, which means it can simultaneously process speech and facial recognition.

The information the AZ2 Chip learns about a user's face will become part of what Amazon calls Visual ID, and require the user to specifically register for this feature. This allows the Echo Show 15 to recognize users and display custom content based on the user's Alexa profile.

Just like its predecessor, the AZ2 Chip is a neural edge processor, which means it uses machine learning to reduce the amount of data that needs to be sent or received from the cloud. This has the benefit of not only reducing latency but also reducing the amount of data stored in the cloud.

While Amazon has made it very easy to control, view, and edit the information it has access to. At the moment, the Echo Show 15 is the only Amazon hardware equipped with the AZ2 Chip. But like the AZ1 chip, users can expect it to be a key piece of technology in other Amazon devices in the future.

For information, the Echo Show 15 is supported by a 15.6-inch 1080p display, and has entertainment options that include Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, and more. All Echo Shows will soon support TikTok and Sling TV streaming as well. This new device will be available later this year.