Anker is making its first move into silicon design, with the development of its own custom AI chip.
Coined Thus, the chip uses a compute-in-memory architecture, a design approach that places computation directly alongside the stored model rather than shuttling data between separate storage and processing units. This should reduce the energy cost of each inference cycle and will allow the chip to fit inside smaller devices than existing AI silicon permits.
That boost in efficiency will especially help earbuds, where power budgets are severely constrained and always-on processing places continuous demand on a battery life.
While previous onboard neural networks topped out at a few hundred thousand parameters, due to the mentioned limitations, Anker’s Thus chip raises that ceiling to several million parameters. According to Anker, this figure should result in improved call quality, with the chip working alongside eight MEMS microphones and two bone conduction sensors in its first host device to cleanly isolate the wearer’s voice across noisy environments than current designs allow.
This should offer an improvement over traditional call noise cancellation, which tends to struggle in high-noise conditions, due to the small networks handling which lack the capacity to cleanly separate a voice signal from complex ambient sound. That results in compressed audio or background noise bleeding through on the receiving end.
Anker will debut the Thus chip inside Soundcore’s upcoming flagship earbuds, with a leak reported by The Verge in March pointing to the Liberty 5 Pro Max and Liberty 5 Pro as the first models, carrying expected prices of $229.99 and $169.99 respectively ahead of a full product reveal at Anker Day on 21 May.
Full specifications for the earbuds, along with details of additional AI-powered features enabled by the Thus chip, are expected to follow at that event as Anker outlines its broader silicon roadmap beyond the audio category.
If the Thus chip delivers on its call quality claims, our best noise-cancelling earbuds 2026 guide will be worth revisiting once the Liberty 5 Pro range lands and independent testing gets underway.
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