Phison says its new memory extension technology can run a 26-billion-parameter language model on a PC with just 16 GB of RAM, potentially allowing more advanced smart software to operate locally without relying heavily on cloud infrastructure.

The company unveiled the technology, called aiDAPTIV, at Computex 2026 in Taipei as part of a collaboration with Intel. The system combines Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors with Phison’s storage-based memory extension platform to support larger models and longer-running workloads on consumer PCs.

As smart applications become more capable, they increasingly require more memory to handle larger models, maintain session history, and execute multi-step tasks. Many current PCs lack enough DRAM to run these workloads efficiently, forcing users to depend on cloud-based services.

Phison says aiDAPTIV addresses this limitation by extending working memory beyond traditional DRAM and into high-performance NAND flash storage. The technology uses what the company calls Pascari aiDAPTIV Cache Memory to make additional memory resources available to local workloads.

Breaking memory limits

According to Phison, internal testing showed that a 26-billion-parameter model could run on a system equipped with 16 GB of DRAM when aiDAPTIV was enabled. The same workload required 32 GB of DRAM without the technology under identical test conditions.

The company said the platform also supports runtime features such as KV cache reuse, which helps retain information from previous interactions and reduces the need to repeatedly process the same data.

The collaboration with Intel is focused on enabling aiDAPTIV on Intel AI PC platforms powered by Core Ultra processors. The companies are also working on support for Intel’s OpenVINO toolkit and evaluating optimized workloads for future performance demonstrations.

“AI PCs are evolving into platforms for more sophisticated local AI workloads, including agentic applications and larger MoE models that place increasing demands on memory capacity and responsiveness,” said KS Pua, CEO and Founder at Phison Electronics.

“Through our collaboration with Intel, aiDAPTIV helps expand the necessary memory available to AI workloads on Intel AI PC platforms, allowing OEMs, developers and end users to run more capable AI applications locally while maintaining privacy and infrastructure efficiency.”

Local models expand

At Computex, the companies demonstrated a local chat interface running a mixture-of-experts model that would normally exceed the available system memory. Phison also showcased a hybrid large-language-model routing system built on OpenClaw, an open-source agent framework.

The demonstration allowed larger models to run locally while using cloud-based resources only when more complex requests required additional processing.

Intel said memory remains one of the primary barriers to running advanced models on client hardware.

“More users and businesses want to run AI locally — faster, more private and without the cost of sending everything to the cloud,” said Jim Johnson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Client Computing at Intel.

“Our collaboration with Phison enables Intel AI PC platforms to support larger local AI workloads with simpler memory configurations, so customers can turn their own data into useful applications and real business value at a lower total cost.”

The announcement was made at Computex 2026 in Taipei.