It’s being reported tis morning that Chinese smartphone and EV maker Xiaomi said earlier today that it’s launching a new self-developed advanced mobile chip branded XringO1 later this month, according to Reuters.

Xiaomi’s renewed push into mobile chip development comes as competition in China’s smartphone market has been intensifying, with rivals like Huawei and Apple leveraging their own custom-designed chips to create tightly integrated ecosystems and enhance user experience.

The XringO1 mobile chip was developed by Xiaomi's internal chip design unit using ARM's architecture and manufactured by the world's largest contract chipmaker using its advanced 3-nm node.

Xiaomi, the world's third largest smartphone maker aims to eventually use the mobile chip in premium consumer electronics, including smartphones and tablets, the source added, without providing further details.

CNBC added that according to Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun, they’ll invest $6.9 billion over the next 10 years to develop its own chips.  The chip is a "significant" achievement for Xiaomi, and allows it to reduce "its reliance on external designers" such MediaTek and Qualcomm, Washington-based semiconductor and technology analyst Ray Wang told AFP.

The Verge report adds that Xiaomi has opted for a 10-core CPU, more than any of the competition. Two Arm Cortex-X925 prime cores are clocked at 3.9GHz, with four more cores at 3.4GHz, two at 1.9GHz, and another two at 1.8GHz. The 16-core Immortalis-G925 is also top-spec, matching the graphics horsepower in MediaTek’s Dimensity flagship.

Chip architecture has started to vary enough between the major players that clock speeds and core counts aren’t a great guide to performance. Neither are lab benchmarks, though Xiaomi’s claimed AnTuTu score of over three million puts this up there with the best, and it’s bullish about the chip’s power-efficiency too.

What this tells us, though, is that Xiaomi is serious about the Xring O1 holding its own as a true flagship: it should be in the same ballpark as Android alternatives from Qualcomm and MediaTek, and far ahead of the most powerful chips from Samsung’s Exynos team.

To hammer the point home, Xiaomi is launching their 15S Pro phone and their Pad 7 Ultra tablet with a 14-inch OLED screen and large 12,000mAh battery, that at 5.1mm is one of the thinnest tablets on the market.