Smartphone AI is moving toward a new stage, and vivo and MediaTek are preparing to make more powerful AI models run directly on phones. The companies are working with the new Dimensity 9600 Pro platform to support on-device Mixture-of-Experts models with up to 30 billion parameters.
The development was reported on September 19, 2026, and shows how flagship smartphones are starting to focus on local AI processing instead of sending every request to a cloud server.
30B AI models could run on the phone
The Dimensity 9600 Pro is designed around stronger AI processing, including support for large Mixture-of-Experts models. These models can use different parts of a larger AI system depending on the task, which can make large models more practical on mobile hardware.
Supporting models with up to 30 billion parameters is a major step for smartphone AI. It could allow future vivo phones to handle more advanced tasks locally, including text generation, image processing and other AI-powered features.
Why on-device AI matters
Local AI processing can offer several advantages. A phone does not always need to send information to a remote server, which can improve privacy and reduce the time needed to receive a response.
It can also make AI features more useful when an internet connection is weak or unavailable. The biggest challenge will be keeping power consumption and heat under control while running these larger models.
The Dimensity 9600 Pro is therefore not only about faster CPU and GPU performance. Its AI hardware could become one of the most important parts of upcoming flagship smartphones.
vivo could be among the first to benefit
vivo is closely working with MediaTek on this new AI platform, making its upcoming flagship phones important devices to watch.
This also points to a wider change in the Android market. Smartphone makers are increasingly competing on how much AI a phone can run locally, rather than simply comparing processor clock speeds or benchmark scores.
If 30-billion-parameter models can become practical on consumer phones, the next generation of flagship devices could offer much more capable AI assistants and creative tools without depending entirely on the cloud.
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