From Quark Glasses to Doubao Phones, Why Are Giants Flocking to Edge AI?

Edge artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise: Tech giants are clustering to layout, and the smart terminal ecosystem is 迎来变革窗口。

Alibaba released its first AI glasses "Quark" last Thursday, priced from 1,899 yuan, deeply integrating the Qianwen large model with Alibaba's ecological services. Four days later, ByteDance launched the "Doubao AI Phone Assistant," directly embedded in the operating system's underlying layer, enabling complex operations such as cross-application price comparison and ordering. Tech giants are ramping up investments in edge AI hardware, marking a rapid extension of AI applications from the cloud to terminal devices.

According to estimates by CITIC Construction Investment, the AI penetration rates for smartphones and PCs are expected to reach 45% and 62% respectively by 2026, with the edge AI market scale projected to leap from 321.9 billion yuan in 2025 to 1.22 trillion yuan in 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of 40%. The Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology released the "Action Plan for High-Quality Development of the Smart Terminal Industry" over a month ago, strengthening the layout of edge AI chips from a policy perspective and injecting strong momentum into industrial development.

This wave of edge AI will reshape the smart terminal ecosystem, with comprehensive upgrades in interaction methods, system architecture, and business models, expected to create new growth opportunities for upstream chip, midstream hardware, and downstream software supply chain companies. The market anticipates that smart glasses sales will grow from 1.52 million units in 2024 to 60 million units in 2029, becoming an important AI carrier following smartphones and PCs.

Edge AI Advantages Highlighted, Policies Support Industrial Upgrades

Edge AI has significant advantages over cloud AI. According to Qualcomm's white paper "Hybrid AI is the Future of AI," edge AI excels in cost, energy consumption, reliability, privacy, and personalization. The inference costs of cloud AI surge with the growth of user scale, while edge processing can effectively alleviate the pressure on cloud infrastructure. At the same time, edge AI can run generative models with lower energy consumption, avoiding queuing delays during peak cloud periods and protecting user privacy data locally.

Policy support provides important guarantees for the development of edge AI. On October 14, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology issued the "Action Plan for High-Quality Development of the Smart Terminal Industry (2026-2027)," clearly stating the need to strengthen the layout of edge artificial intelligence chips, focusing on the demand for terminal products such as smartphones, computers, and glasses, covering the three major technical routes of X86, ARM, and RISC-V. Previously, in August, the State Council issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Implementation of the Artificial Intelligence + Action," proposing that the penetration rate of the new generation of smart terminals exceed 70% by 2027 and exceed 90% by 2030.

Local policies and central planning work together to create conditions for the certain growth of the AI consumer electronics industry. As the core area of the Yangtze River Delta AI consumer electronics ecosystem, the introduction of this action plan will bring more growth opportunities to upstream AI chips, midstream hardware, and downstream software supply chain companies

Tech Giants Rush into Edge AI Hardware Market

Alibaba has taken the lead by launching Quark AI glasses, officially entering the consumer-grade AI wearable device market. The product is equipped with the Qianwen large model, deeply integrating services from the Alibaba ecosystem such as Alipay, Amap, Taobao, and Fliggy, with a starting price of 1,899 yuan. In terms of hardware, it adopts a dual optical dual-eye display solution with a brightness of 4,000 nits, equipped with five microphone arrays and bone conduction, supporting 3K video recording and Super Raw low-light enhancement technology.

ByteDance has introduced Doubao AI phone assistant, directly embedded at the operating system level, showcasing a more aggressive strategic ambition. This assistant can understand natural language commands, crossing different application barriers to execute complex command chains such as "compare the price of KFC spicy chicken leg burgers on JD.com, Meituan Waimai, and Taobao, and place an order at the lowest price." The product is equipped with a dedicated physical button and "screen perception" capability, which can automatically read screen content and generate reply suggestions.

These two products represent different paths in the development of edge AI: Alibaba focuses on professional devices for vertical scenarios, while ByteDance attempts to reshape mobile interaction through system-level integration. This differentiated competitive landscape is expected to drive rapid iteration and upgrade of edge AI technology.

Edge AI Redefines Smart Terminal Ecosystem

The development of edge AI is redefining the smart terminal from three dimensions: interaction methods, system architecture, and business ecology.

The interaction method is shifting from GUI to LUI. According to Geek Park's analysis, the biggest impact of large models on the interaction layer is the rise of LUI (Language User Interface). Software traditionally dominated by GUI is giving way to a hybrid interaction form of GUI and LUI, allowing users to express needs through natural language, with AI delivering end-to-end results directly.

The system architecture is achieving a leap from "tool execution" to "autonomous execution." AI Agent technology driven by large models possesses a full-process closed-loop capability of "planning-perception-decision-execution," evolving from tool-based AI to autonomous intelligent agents that can act independently on behalf of users, undertake complex tasks, and adapt to environmental changes.

The business ecology is transforming from "single-function tools" to "full-scenario smart terminals." The "1×3×N" ecological strategy released by Honor showcases this trend: by opening AI capabilities through the HONOR AI Connect platform, covering multiple industrial clusters such as education and office, smart home, audio wearables, and companion toys, building a smart interconnected ecology across brands, scenarios, and devices.

New Growth Opportunities for the Industry Chain

The rapid development of edge AI will bring new growth momentum to the entire industry chain. According to a research report by CITIC Construction Investment, related beneficiary targets include:

• In the AI hardware field, focus on computing power chips such as Cambricon, Haiguang Information, and Loongson Technology; for wafer foundry, pay attention to SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor; for advanced packaging, focus on Changdian Technology and Tongfu Microelectronics; for storage, look at Zhaoyi Innovation, Lanke Technology, and Demingli; for PCB, focus on Shenzhen South Circuit, Huada Empyrean, and Shengyi Technology.
• In the edge AI application field, the AI mobile phone industry chain includes the Apple supply chain with Luxshare Precision, Lixun Precision, and Pegatron, and the Android supply chain with Transsion Holdings, Huaqin Technology, and OmniVision Technologies; in the AIoT field, focus on Espressif Technology, Rockchip, Hengxuan Technology, and Actions Smart glasses, as an important carrier of edge AI, have broad market prospects. According to WellsennXR data, global sales of AI glasses are expected to reach 1.52 million units in 2024, with projections of 3.5 million units in 2025 and 60 million units by 2029. Luotu Technology predicts that the retail volume of smart glasses in China is expected to approach 1.4 million units in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 216%.

With technological advancements and the expansion of application scenarios, the popularity of edge AI devices will drive continuous growth in the performance of related industry chain companies, providing new value discovery opportunities for investors. The triple resonance of policy support, technological breakthroughs, and market demand is opening a golden window period for the development of the edge AI industry