Neural Processing Unit market projected to reach $30 billion by 2032

The shift toward dedicated AI silicon marks the end of general-purpose processing dominance for video workloads. As streaming platforms integrate real-time upscaling and multimodal generative features, NPUs offer the necessary performance-per-watt to handle these tasks locally, reducing cloud egress costs and latency. For the ecosystem, this hardware saturation ensures that advanced features like AI-driven background suppression or super-resolution become baseline standard capabilities rather than premium cloud-processed add-ons. Watch for silicon vendors to move beyond hardware specs toward integrated software libraries that simplify cross-platform model deployment.

The expansion of the NPU market reflects a broader industry transition toward specialized silicon. In 2024, Apple introduced the M4 chip featuring a 16-core Neural Engine capable of 38 trillion operations per second (TOPS), specifically designed to accelerate AI-powered video tasks like subject isolation and scene edit detection in Final Cut Pro. Similarly, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite platform, launched in May 2024, utilizes a 45 TOPS NPU to enable local AI workflows in apps like DaVinci Resolve and CapCut, delivering significantly faster performance than cloud-reliant alternatives.

Intel is also aggressively scaling its NPU capabilities to meet the growing demand for "AI PCs." At CES 2025, Intel unveiled the Core Ultra 200V series, noting that its flagship models provide up to 3.4 times higher performance in end-to-end video analytics compared to previous generations. These developments coincide with a maturation of the streaming market, where operators are shifting focus from subscriber acquisition to monetization and operational efficiency. Per Precedence Research, the global video streaming market is projected to reach $195.85 billion in 2026, with revenue growth increasingly tied to AI-driven engagement and retention tools.

Furthermore, the integration of NPUs into edge devices is becoming a competitive necessity for streaming platforms looking to implement advanced content-adaptive encoding. While Netflix and Google have historically relied on server-side AI for dynamic optimization (achieving up to 30% bitrate reduction), the availability of local NPU power allows for real-time, on-device video enhancement. According to Datainsightsmarket (May 2026), the introduction of NPUs into entry-level streaming device SoCs is expected to democratize 4K AI-upscaling for lower-resolution content by the end of the decade.