Nordic Semiconductor on November 4 launched the nRF71 series of ultra-low-power system-on-chips (SoCs), the first to integrate Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread and on-device artificial intelligence inference into a single chip, with standby power consumption reduced by up to 20 times compared with the existing nRF70 series of Wi-Fi products. The Norway-headquartered company said the energy-efficiency leap will free battery-powered Wi-Fi products in the smart home, wearable and industrial IoT sectors from battery-life constraints, with a single chip handling application processing, wireless connectivity and local AI decision-making. Kjetil Holstad, Nordic's Executive Vice President of Wi-Fi and Power Management, said edge AI will become integral to connected devices but battery-powered devices often struggle to meet Wi-Fi power demands, an obstacle the nRF71 series removes. The chip's built-in Axon neural processing unit (NPU) performs tasks such as keyword recognition, anomaly detection and image classification without an additional AI processor; according to Nordic, the Axon NPU runs machine learning models 10 to 17 times faster than using a 256 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 processor alone. The series also supports ultra-small AI models built with Nordic's Neuton software, with model updates delivered over the air (OTA) via nRF Cloud. The nRF71 employs two independent radio systems—one for Wi-Fi and a 2.4 GHz multi-protocol radio system derived from the latest-generation nRF