Wearables are getting smarter every year, but most of them still lean heavily on a nearby smartphone to do the real thinking. That dependency may not last much longer.
Researchers from Tsinghua University and Peking University have now developed a flexible AI chip that is slimmer than a human hair and can be folded thousands of times.
Dubbed as FLEXI, the chip could allow future wearables to run artificial intelligence independently, without constantly offloading data to a phone or the cloud.
Inside the chip that bends without breaking
What makes FLEXI stand out is not just its computing ability, but its physical form. According the research paper, it is built as a thin plastic film using low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) circuits fabricated on a flexible base.
Since the entire system sits on this pliable surface, the chip can be bent, stretched, twisted, or even crumpled without damaging the embedded AI circuits. That makes it well-suited for wearables such as smart patches or health monitors that need to conform closely to the human body.
To test its durability, the team tested FLEXI through extreme stress experiments. The chip survived more than 40,000 bending cycles and folding down to a radius of just 1 mm, all without losing performance.
FLEXI also delivered strong results in real-world testing. When used for health monitoring, it identified irregular heartbeats with 99.2% accuracy and tracked daily activities like walking and cycling with 97.4% accuracy.
The chip proved highly efficient as well, consuming less than 1% of the energy used by conventional chips. Additionally, TechXplore reports that this flexible chip will cost under $1 per unit when mass-produced.
This flexible AI chip could change what wearables can do
The researchers say their next step is to integrate more sensors into the chip and further increase its complexity, pushing flexible AI wearables closer to everyday use.
Beyond medical uses, chips like FLEXI could power audio wearables that process sound and voice commands independently, or lightweight AR glasses that handle visuals and gestures without a phone.
They could also accelerate broader mobile and wireless tech, where engineers are already exploring innovations. That includes ideas like chips that use controlled surface vibrations to make future phones thinner and faster and approaches to improve cooling and performance in devices using synthetic diamond that could benefit next-generation hardware.