Ambiq mission is to enable artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere by delivering the lowest power semiconductor solutions. Their patented and proprietary subthreshold power optimized technology (SPOT®) platform fundamentally reduces total system power consumption by an order of magnitude over traditional semiconductors.
Interview with Charlene Wan, VP of Branding, Marketing, and Investor Relations at Ambiq.
A brief description of the company and its activities.
Charlene Wan: Ambiq stands for ”ambient IQ.” Since we helped our customers replace traditional algorithms with neural networks in 2017, we’ve shipped over 270 million chips, enabling products from personal devices, medical and healthcare, smart homes and buildings, and industrial edge.
We empower our customers to run artificial intelligence compute on battery-powered edge devices where power consumption challenges are the most profound.
What are the main areas of activity of the company?
C.W: Since Ambiq was founded in 2010, we have focused on applying the SPOT platform to create the lowest power and highest-performing semiconductor solutions for manufacturers who always desire more energy efficiency in their products. As manufacturers became more familiar with neural networks, their need for more device power went from nice-to-have to critical. In the last couple of years, intelligence transformed from “smart” to “AI” and shifted from the cloud to the edge for more on-device and real-time inferencing with domain-specific reasoning models. Edge devices rely on power to drive useful AI. Because of the SPOT platform, Ambiq is the only provider of semiconductor solutions today that can enable and sustain on-device inferencing for daily use. We see edge AI as an essential part of AI that directly embodies our mission of enabling intelligence everywhere.
What’s the news about new products/services?
C.W: In March 2025, we introduced our new Apollo330 Plus Series SoCs, a new iteration from our 3rd-generation Apollo SoC family designed for the embedded community serving the industrial edge, medical and healthcare, and smart homes and buildings. The Apollo330 Plus SoCs feature powerful processing and energy efficiency built on SPOT and the Arm® processor technologies. The Apollo330 Plus series offers multiple package and connectivity options such as Bluetooth® Low Energy, Matter, and Thread.
Our latest and most capable Apollo510 MCU is also slated for general availability in 2025. It provides the most compute and performance to enable advanced AI directly on edge devices. Recognized by Embedded World as the Best Hardware 2024 for edge AI enablement, it can perform the vast majority of AI functionalities without needing a neural processing unit.
We provide full-stack solutions, including hardware, software, and an AI model factory, to manufacturers who look for a proven build environment and toolsets for faster time-to-market. Our heartKIT™ reference model for real-time cardiac monitoring won the prestigious award from Embedded World as the Best AI 2025. heartKIT is an open-source vital sign AI reference model that enables developers to easily create personalized, real-time heart-monitoring applications that operate efficiently on battery-powered devices.
What are the ranges of products/services?
C.W: We have five generations of System-on-Chips (SoCs), Microcontrollers (MCUs), and Real-Time Clocks (RTCs) with industry-leading energy efficiency for power-constrained devices for various market segments, such as personal devices, medical, smart homes, industrial edge, and more. Each chip generation offers different CPU, memory, security, communications, and I/Os specifications. The fundamental SPOT platform dramatically reduces a device’s total system power consumption, including inferencing, sensing, communications, graphics, storage, security, and more, providing manufacturers the choices of lengthening the battery life, adding new features, or running larger neural networks.
On the software side of things, we offer an open-source AI development kit, called neuralSPOT, which features a library of tools, prebuilt, and customizable AI models developers can implement in minutes. They work seamlessly with our Apollo products and take the time out of AI development.
What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
C.W: The Edge AI market is experiencing unprecedented growth and transformation across virtually every industry vertical. Both technological advancements and evolving business requirements drive this explosive expansion. Every industry, from healthcare, consumer sectors, industrial, and more, needs low power AI. Major companies are rethinking their product roadmap to incorporate AI in some way.
Industry-specific edge AI solutions are emerging and tailored to particular use cases and regulatory environments. If we can implement the same functionality that typically has to be processed in the cloud onto an edge device, we could reduce costs and latency for always-on and real-time responses in applications such as health monitoring and factory automation.
What can you tell us about market trends?
C.W: Edge AI has evolved from an emerging technology to a mainstream market driver across multiple sectors. This transition represents a fundamental shift in how artificial intelligence is deployed and utilized, transforming traditional non-tech sectors into AI innovators. For example, consumer packaged goods manufacturers are incorporating edge AI into everyday products, from kitchen appliances that optimize cooking based on food recognition to smart packaging that monitors freshness.
This market evolution reflects a broader understanding that edge AI isn’t merely a technical optimization but a strategic necessity for organizations seeking to extract maximum value from their data while addressing growing concerns around costs, privacy, latency, and connectivity.
What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
C.W: Digital health devices have evolved significantly beyond essential monitoring to become part of an increasingly sophisticated and personalized health management system. The AI-enabled digital health devices have limitless potential to provide more insightful data that patients can use immediately. By providing contextual guidance about what a user’s health metrics mean, they can take specific steps to improve their health outcomes.
The combination of advanced wearable technologies with AI-powered diagnostic tools puts us very close to the possibility of having a doctor on your wrist who’s available to you 24/7. As these technologies continue to evolve, we’re approaching a reality where a physician’s diagnostic and advisory capabilities are available through devices we wear every day, making proactive healthcare management accessible to millions more people.
What estimations do you have for the beginning of 2025?
C.W: The beginning of 2025 represents a significant inflection point for edge AI adoption across multiple sectors, including personal device evolution, enterprise infrastructure transformation, industry- and domain-specific implementations, and new and existing market and infrastructure developments. As more companies adopt edge AI technologies, expect more innovative consumer products such as wearables, hearables, AR/VR technology, virtual assistants, and more.
We will begin to see companies optimize their data center because they can now unload some of their AI workloads onto edge devices. This shift toward edge computing represents not just a technical evolution but a fundamental rethinking of how AI workloads are distributed and managed. By moving appropriate processing closer to data sources at the edge, users and enterprises can achieve greater efficiency, responsiveness, and privacy while reducing bandwidth consumption and cloud computing costs.