At the dawn of 2024, Las Vegas is set to welcome another grand event-The 2024 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will officially commence in Vegas today.

Dubbed the Electronic Spring Festival Gala, this annual event always garners attention from all over the world, and within and outside of the industry: Besides presenting the latest consumer electronics products and technologies, CES often highlights industry concepts and industry hotspots, much loved by stock investors.

The 2024 CES is expected to host more than 130,000 industry participants and over 4,000 companies, including giants such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Samsung.

Welcome To The Era Of AI

The artificial intelligence, which made a splash throughout last year, will once again star in this exhibition. However, instead of focusing on large-scale research and development like last year, AI might see a full-scale deployment in 2024: from mobile phones, and PCs to cars, and from earphones, and watches to smart home appliances, AI will be omnipresent. The CES, commencing tomorrow, serves as a preview of this AI era.

First on the list are AI-related PC products. Intel will deliver five speeches during the event, and its CEO, Patrick Paul Gelsinger, will emphasize the AI capabilities of Meteor Lake during his speech. Meteor Lake is a recently launched, innovative, and high-performance AI PC processor from Intel. It adopts the Chiplet architecture and integrates an NPU for the first time to achieve edge-side AI computing capabilities.

 

As the laptop to be the first to equip with this advanced processor, Lenovo's IdeaPad Pro 5i will also be showcased at the exposition. The Lenovo Group has designed this AI PC specifically for creators. It comes equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 mobile GPU to assist creators in making productions that align with their imagination and requirements using AI-based generative creation tools.

 

Apart from IdeaPad Pro 5i, Lenovo plans to debut its Flagship Business Laptop That Is Fully Connected By AI - ThinkPad X1 Carbon AI. This notebook will sport Intel's latest Core Ultra 7 processor, embedding three major AI engines - CPU, GPU, and NPU — to fully unleash local hybrid AI computing power. It is reported that this product will assist users in leveraging AI tools for multiple office scenarios, such as text prediction, image editing, meeting records, and other work tasks.

Meanwhile, many other major brands such as HP, Acer, Dell, etc., have also announced that they will unveil their AIPC products at CES 2024.

On the other hand, mobile phones and applications combined with AI programs, and multimodal large models that can run on smartphones, will also be one of the focus points of the exhibition.

Google is expected to introduce more smartphone applications based on multimodal large models at the event. Samsung is also prepared to showcase its AI Live Translate Call function at the exhibition. Earlier, the Korean Tech giant announced that it would incorporate its self-developed large model, Galaxy AI, into its Galaxy flagship smartphones and would soon launch an AI service that provides personal translations for users.

It's noteworthy that many automakers are eager about this CES event, especially with the potential for the introduction of car-based AI assistants or self-driving related functions.

For instance, Mercedes, which collaborates with OpenAI, is set to debut its new interactive human-machine interface, new concept CLA-class car, and a prototype electric version of the G-class SUV during CES. Honda is set to globally debut its all-new electric vehicle at the show, and KIA plans to showcase five PBV concept models.

Even Sony, a Japanese manufacturer with no previous relevance to car-making, may launch an electric car named AFEELA at the event. Rumors suggest that this model will feature a variety of popular smart networked vehicle designs or functional configurations, such as no door handles, electronic rearview mirrors, and LiDAR, and it can achieve L3-level autonomous driving.

When Virtual Reality Steps into Reality

In 2023, while AI undoubtedly caught the market's attention and created enough buzz, the mid-year release of Apple's augmented reality headset, Vision Pro, also lit up the AR/MR device and the related industrial chain. This year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) aims to propel the field of virtual reality and mixed reality to new heights through the demonstration of new hardware and experiences.

Predictions suggest that new head-mounted devices using Qualcomm's latest XR2+ Gen2 VR chips, along with new sensors and software that can extend the current headset experience capabilities, will be unveiled at the exhibition. Samsung is also expected to unveil an MR device, Galaxy Glass, at CES. Sony plans to introduce its PS VR3 content at the event.

Hence, it can be said that besides AI, this exhibition may also officially kickstart a new era of virtual reality. Through this event, while looking at a myriad of products, audiences are expected to witness how visual tools like VR, XR, AR, and MR will help people accomplish various tasks in the future.

Absence Doesn't Mean Inactivity

While more than 4,000 companies, including giants like Meta and NVIDIA, will be participating in CES this year, the absence of two companies - Apple and OpenAI - caught the attention of consumers. Keep in mind, that these two were often the headline makers last year.

However, their absence this year doesn't mean they plan to simply watch the fun. Insiders report that Apple's retail department and supply chain are fully preparing for the sale of the Vision Pro headset. The headset has already been shipped to distribution warehouses in the U.S. and seems to provide ample inventory for Apple retail stores. Meanwhile, some retail store employees have gone to Apple's headquarters to receive product sales training. Apple's target remains to bring this headset to consumers in January.

 

OpenAI is also not planning to sit idle. According to an e-mail sent to GPT developers by the company this week, OpenAI will officially launch the long-rumored GPT Store next week. The GPT Store app store is a custom mode for ChatGPT, which users, without needing any code, can quickly develop GPT assistants for specific fields such as law, finance, medical, etc., by submitting conversation commands, additional knowledge data, and then selecting whether they need developer products or features such as web search, data analysis, and image generation.

In addition, OpenAI will also allow users to choose whether to put their own models in the GPT store for sharing or even charging fees.