Smartphone NPUs vs Cloud AI: Energy Cost Comparison

Smartphone neural processing unit performing on-device AI inference compared with cloud data center processing

The rapid deployment of dedicated Neural Processing Units (NPUs) in smartphones has fundamentally changed the economics of AI inference. Tasks that once required round trips to cloud GPUs can now execute locally on-device. But the real question in 2025 is not capability—it is energy and system cost efficiency at scale. This article provides a grounded … Read more