It is based around a neural processing unit (NPU) AI accelerator chip and a software API to interact with the platform.
It is used for image and sound processing, including speech recognition.
[1] Mobile chip maker Qualcomm announced in March 2015, that it would bundle the software with its next major mobile device chip, the Snapdragon 820 processor.
[1] Qualcomm demonstrated that the system could recognize human faces[1] and gestures[2] that it had seen before and detect and then search for different types of photo scenes.
[1] Another potential application is to extend battery life by analyzing phone usage and powering down all or part of its capabilities without affecting the user experience.