Leti Innovation Days Highlights Pioneering Edge AI Projects

GRENOBLE – This year’s Leti Innovation Days, themed “Deep Tech for Edge Artificial Intelligence,” attracted 800 delegates worldwide amid a record heatwave that pushed outdoor temperatures close to 40 °C (104 °F).

Hosted on the Minatec campus, the conference featured lectures, workshops, and live demos that highlighted the key challenges of deploying AI at the edge.

Data privacy remains the primary driver for edge AI adoption, while reducing computation time and energy consumption is equally critical. In fact, data transfer and memory access can consume up to 90 % of a system’s energy, making it essential to minimize data movement between memory and processor.

CEA‑Leti, renowned for its research in health, environment, and energy, showcased an array of breakthrough projects alongside collaborations with startups that have spun out of the institute.

Below are five standout projects that captured our attention.

Spirit Chip (Photo: EE Times)

• Apneaband – a wearable device that monitors sleep apnea in real time.
• Spirit – a spiking‑neural‑network architecture that delivers massively parallel, low‑power, low‑latency inference.
• Bacram – a lens‑free imaging system capable of rapid identification of biological threats.
• Dneuro – a high‑performance deep‑neural‑network accelerator that runs standalone on FPGA hardware.
• Worms – an innovative tactile‑interaction platform that turns everyday objects into touch‑aware devices.