Samsung Electronics is expected to unveil its highly anticipated Galaxy S9 flagship phone next month. Ahead of its launch, the South Korean tech giant has announced its new Exynos 9 Series 9810 processor, which features a powerful custom CPU, very fast gigabit LTE modem and sophisticated deep learning capabilities. Samsung's latest premium application processor is so advanced that it has already been selected as a CES 2018 Innovation Awards Honoree in the Embedded Technologies product category ahead of the big Las Vegas event next week. Built on the 10nm process, the Exynos 9810 is more advanced than its predecessors in more ways than one. The Exynos 9810 is designed to carry out seamless multi-tasking.

Samsung has unveiled details about its upcoming Exynos 9 Series 9810 processor bound for the Galaxy S9, and it could give the iPhone X with its A11 Bionic chip some stiff competition. In addition to massive speed boots, improved networking, and image processing enhancements, the new chip unlocks 3D face detection, a feature that sounds a whole lot like Face ID. In a press release ahead of its public debut at CES, Samsung outlines numerous improvements for the second-generation 10nm Exynos 9810. The chip has a new 8-core architecture, with four of the cores reaching speeds of up to 2.9GHz (versus 2.3GHz on the 8895). Samsung says that will bring a 40 percent performance boost. Why this matters: While the Exynos chips will likely still be relegated to overseas models of Galaxy phones, Samsung's chips could have wider implications this year.

Samsung has unveiled its next-generation smartphone chip that will give its upcoming Galaxy S9 some iPhone X-like features, including face unlocking and animated emojis. The Exynos 9810 is built on its second-generation 10-nanometer fabrication tech, and will outperform the current flagship Exynos 8895 chip by up to 100 percent in single-core mode, Samsung said. The chip is likely to be sold in Asia, while US and European customers will get the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chip. Samsung emphasized that the new chip will be much better at AI, improving face detection, image recognition and other deep learning activities. That, in turn, will allow it to do real-time scanning of your face in 3D.