Powering the Next Wave of Edge AI: Ambiq’s Journey from Breakthrough to IPO
Three out of every four smartwatches in the world run on Ambiq chips. With more than 280 million devices powered globally, the US-headquartered semiconductor innovator has redefined what’s possible for wearables. But Ambiq’s ultra low-power technology goes far beyond wearables — it now supports a growing range of connected devices, from healthcare monitors and hearing aids to smart glasses, industrial sensors, gaming controllers and smart home systems.
The importance of energy efficiency and ambient intelligence was best demonstrated in Singapore, where Ambiq’s technology powered the TraceTogether token during the pandemic — enabling months of battery life on a single charge. The token played a key role in supporting nationwide contact tracing and public health efforts.
TraceTogether
As Artificial Intelligence became increasingly embedded in consumer expectations, Ambiq’s low-power expertise took on new relevance. Its platform enables on-device or edge AI, reducing latency, improving data security, and cutting power consumption — key capabilities for devices that must stay constantly connected yet energy-efficient. Today, Ambiq’s technology is used by leading global brands such as Google, Garmin, Suunto, and Whoop.
In July 2025, Ambiq marked a new milestone with its IPO — underscoring both the strength of its breakthrough technology and the rising global demand for energy-efficient edge AI.
Solving the Power Challenge at the Edge
Founded in 2010 by Dr. Scott Hanson during his doctoral research at the University of Michigan, Ambiq emerged from a breakthrough in subthreshold conduction, operating semiconductor chips below the conventional voltage threshold to drastically reduce energy use.
While the concept had long been viewed as too unstable for commercial application, given its sensitivity to voltage and temperature variations, Hanson’s circuit design overcame these limitations, making subthreshold technology viable for large-scale manufacturing. This became the foundation of Ambiq’s Subthreshold Power Optimized Technology (SPOT®) platform, which delivers ultra-low-power performance for a new generation of connected devices.
As the Internet of Things (IoT) gained momentum, SPOT continues to play a part in extending battery life for wearables and sensors — pushing endurance from hours to weeks on a single charge. The same architecture has since supported innovations in healthcare monitors, hearing aids, and smart glasses.
Impact at Global Scale
Ambiq’s technology is now embedded in hundreds of millions of devices worldwide. Leading global brands in fitness, healthcare, and smart home sectors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore’s TraceTogether token was powered by Ambiq’s technology — a national-scale deployment that demonstrated how deep tech innovation can address critical challenges.
The company’s technology also underpins new advances in hearing aids, supporting AI-driven sound enhancement and noise suppression while maintaining long battery life. More recently, fitness band manufacturer Whoop has leveraged Ambiq chips in its devices to perform real-time sensor processing and biometric analysis with ten times more power efficiency, leverages on-device machine learning to efficiently process raw biometric data, performing crucial tasks like real-time sensor filtering, feature extraction, and automatic detection of activities and sleep stages. enabling multi-day battery life in compact form factors.
Ambiq Whoop Collaboration
Anchoring in Singapore
While headquartered in the United States, Ambiq has built a strong base in Singapore, which now serves as its regional hub for R&D and commercial operations. The company first established its commercial base here to serve Asia, before launching its Centre of Excellence in 2020 and its Technology Design Centre in 2022, expanding design, verification, and validation engineering capabilities. Singapore’s robust infrastructure, multicultural talent pool, and strong IP protections have enabled Ambiq to scale its innovation and market reach.
As CEO, Fumihide Esaka notes:
“Singapore is an extremely strategic location in Southeast Asia. It creates a win-win environment between the government and the private sector, making it easy for new technology to be adopted. With highly skilled, multicultural talent and strong respect for intellectual property, Singapore is critical to Ambiq — which is why we established both our R&D centre and sales headquarters here.”
This expansion was catalysed by Ambiq’s US$28 million Series E round in 2018, where EDBI, the investment arm of SG Growth Capital, was among the investors. As part of its mandate to anchor global innovators, EDBI provided growth capital and value creation support, enabling Ambiq to grow its Singapore base into a strategic hub for global R&D and regional market expansion.
Ambiq New Singapore Office Opening, 25 February 2026
This footprint continues to grow. In February 2026, Ambiq marked another milestone with the opening of its new Singapore office, which will support the expansion of teams across research, engineering, design, product, and business development.
Today, Singapore serves as a strategic hub for Ambiq’s post-IPO growth, attracting top engineering talent and advancing the next generation of SPOT-powered products. These new designs aim to deliver greater energy efficiency and performance for more demanding AI applications, such as computer vision, while maintaining the company’s ultra-low-power focus.
From Series E to IPO
Ambiq’s IPO in July 2025 was the culmination of years of innovation and expansion. With growth capital from investors including EDBI, the company scaled its R&D capabilities, deepened its Singapore presence, and proved that ultra-low power innovation could achieve commercial scale. The listing demonstrates Ambiq’s ability to solve critical industry challenges — energy efficiency at the edge — and the role of supportive ecosystems in turning deep tech breakthroughs into public market successes.
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Looking Ahead: The Future of Edge AI
As billions of devices become smarter and more connected, the demand for energy-efficient intelligence at the edge will only intensify. Ambiq’s IPO is not an endpoint, but a springboard — positioning the company to expand into new applications where ultra-low power performance is critical.
The next wave of connected innovation will be important to power continuous healthcare monitoring that can support ageing populations, sustainable IoT networks that minimise energy use, next-generation safety and industrial systems that require always-on intelligence, and more.
For Singapore and EDBI, Ambiq’s journey highlights the value of growth capital and robust ecosystems in helping global innovators embed here and build for the world. As edge AI becomes ubiquitous, Singapore will continue to serve as a trusted hub where breakthrough technologies can scale with impact.
References
- Ambiq Enables Singapore’s TraceTogether Token to Help Fight Against COVID-19 | Ambiq
- Ambiq Micro Registration Statement
- Ambiq Introduces AI-Powered Speech Enhancement Platform for Hearables | audioXpress
- Ambiq Apollo510 MCU Wins the Best Hardware Category at Embedded World 2024 | Ambiq
- Ambiq heartKIT Wins the Artificial Intelligence Award at Embedded World 2025 | Ambiq
- Ambiq Receives the 2024 Distinguished Golden Bull Award | Ambiq
