Lenovo partners with Movidius to use its Myriad 2 visual processing chip for various undisclosed VR projects, the first of which are slated for 2nd half of 2016
Lenovo and Movidius are working on VR together, using chips used in DJI's latest drones. — @jetscott / 8 June 201612:46 am AEST
Context & Ripple Effects
Movidius enters this deal with its credentials already established elsewhere: the Myriad 2 powers the obstacle avoidance on DJI's Phantom 4 per the earlier Phantom 4 autonomy coverage, and Google had tapped the same chip line for on-device image recognition in handsets. Lenovo is the third marquee name to sign on, and the first PC maker, pulling the chip from drones and phones into head-mounted computing.
The timing matters because the partnership barely got to ship before the ground shifted: three months later Intel announced it was acquiring Movidius outright (the Recode-reported buyout), folding Lenovo's VR silicon supplier into a rival-scale chip company. Lenovo's own VR roadmap continued regardless, surfacing in 2018 as the Mirage Solo WorldSense headset.
First-order effects
- Lenovo gains dedicated low-power vision silicon for a slate of undisclosed VR products targeted at the second half of 2016, while Movidius converts its drone-and-handset track record into a design win with a top-tier PC OEM.
Second-order effects
- Intel's acquisition of Movidius puts Lenovo's chosen VR chip under a direct competitor's ownership, forcing Lenovo to weigh whether its H2 2016 product pipeline stays on Myriad 2 roadmaps controlled by Intel.
- The deal extends Myriad 2's reference-customer list across drones, phones, and now VR, strengthening Movidius' pitch to other device makers shopping for onboard computer-vision compute.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, specialized vision-processing startups become acquisition targets once they accumulate flagship design wins — the same consolidation dynamic that pulled Movidius into Intel shortly after this partnership was struck.
- For PC OEMs like Lenovo, competitive VR hardware increasingly means sourcing third-party AI silicon rather than building vision capability in-house, a dependency that shapes who controls their device roadmaps.
The trend: Low-power computer-vision chips are migrating from drone and phone niches into mainstream consumer devices through OEM partnerships, with the winning silicon startups absorbed by major chipmakers along the way.