China is getting first access to a British technology that could reshape mobile gaming. The Xiaomi 18 Fold launched today in mainland China with an Arm Mali G2-Ultra NX graphics processor inside its custom Xring O3 chip, representing the culmination of five years of development to embed an AI gaming graphics accelerator directly into a GPU. Following Nvidia's approach, Arm-powered phones are poised to deliver PC-like capabilities that make games run faster, at higher resolution, with advanced lighting techniques, all without consuming more power than current devices.
The new GPU delivers an 85-percent performance increase over Xiaomi's previous graphics processor and a 14-percent boost over Arm's earlier flagship in non-AI gaming, according to the report. When "Neural Super Sampling," "Neural Frame Rate Upscaling," and "Neural Denoising" are all activated together, Arm claims up to four times the framerate, because each method allows the system to do less work rendering actual pixels and frames while relying on AI to fill gaps. An entire phone with these chips will consume no more than 2.5 watts, with only 1.5 watts allocated to the GPU. The Xiaomi Pad 9 Pro Max tablet, which pairs Arm's GPU with a larger battery, screen, and surface area for cooling, demonstrates 3.2K resolution at 120 frames per second.
Chris Bergey, Arm's EVP of Edge AI, tells The Verge that buyers "will be able to get it in phones next year, you will be able to get it in other types of larger screen devices, whether that be tablets or Chromebooks." He hints that some of Google's upcoming Chromebooks might incorporate this graphics technology as well. The first titles will largely feature super sampling, Bergey says, with frame generation arriving in early 2027 and denoising soon after that. Where Winds Meet, Infinity Nikki, and Arena Breakout: Infinite are the first three games confirmed to leverage Arm's new graphics accelerator, with additional titles to be announced in coming weeks.
These techniques enable what Arm calls "neural graphics," offering hardware-accelerated graphical methods similar to Nvidia's DLSS, including AI upscaling that imagines higher-resolution images, frame generation that creates new frames between existing ones, and even ray reconstruction like Nvidia's DLSS 4.5. The report explains that these improvements focus on speed rather than enhancing faces by reimagining light and shadow. Game developers will need to integrate Arm's features into their games, though participating game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity can help. While Mali G2-Ultra NX targets flagship smartphones, neural graphics will also be available across Premium and Pro configurations, bringing the technology to a broader range of mobile segments and tiers. Bergey notes that a phone can now genuinely play an experience like the Neural Dawn technology demo and sustain 1080p at 60 frames per second for three hours, whereas in the past it was 30 minutes.
The technology won't remain exclusive to Chinese devices—chips, devices, and games are already inbound for global markets. Bergey emphasizes this is "not overclocking, this is mainstream," positioning AI as a replacement for traditional rendering that will be deployed wherever possible. However, games likely won't feel four times faster, even if they appear that way, since half the boost comes from imagined frames between existing ones, and when Nvidia, AMD, and Intel perform frame generation, it typically introduces additional latency. The advancement signals that the jagged edges visible in mobile versions of popular games might begin to disappear as PC-quality technologies migrate to smaller screens. The convergence of mobile and desktop gaming experiences appears inevitable now that power efficiency no longer requires sacrificing visual fidelity, though developer adoption will determine whether these capabilities reach mainstream players or remain confined to showcase titles.