Qualcomm debuts newest flagship Snapdragon chip and a brand new AI platform

It’s that point of yr once more. It can drop 20 levels on any given day, and we’re caught indoors watching folks watch Qualcomm announce new chips and reference designs in sunny Hawaii. The Snapdragon Summit is the component-maker’s annual alternative to map out its massive plans for the following yr, forward of the vacation scrum and product deluge of CES and MWC.

It’s a perfect time to pepper the business with some timeline information objects. Many of the foremost producers are successfully completed saying {hardware} for the yr, and issues received’t actually ramp up for one more couple of months.

The massive information is, naturally, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. That’s the chip that’s going to energy a majority of your flagship Android handsets subsequent yr — a minimum of till the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 presumably begins rolling out sooner or later mid-2023.

It’s probably not shocking for many who have been following the area for the final a number of years that Qualcomm is positioning AI/ML because the centerpiece of its newest system on a chip. With the brand new Hexagon Processor (that’s a Qualcomm trademark, thoughts) at its middle, the brand new system on a chip guarantees as much as 4.35x positive aspects for issues like pure language processing.

“This is thanks to the industry’s only Micro Tile Inferencing technique so we can power features like real-time multi-language translation,” the corporate writes. “In other words, you can speak into a language translator and have it translated into multiple languages running these complex networks.”

Computational pictures is the opposite massive piece there. The system is ready to acknowledge and section completely different features of a picture earlier than the picture is taken. It makes use of a portrait for instance — breaking apart hair, garments, the background and a face into completely different segments. It’s a function that may little question be current in imaging merchandise like Portrait mode, during which depth sensing is vital.

The first gadgets with Gen 2 are set to reach earlier than the top of the yr. The listing of cellphone makers signed up for the SoC consists of ASUS, HONOR, iQOO, Motorola, nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, REDMAGIC, Redmi, SHARP, Sony Corporation, vivo, Xiaomi, XINGJI/MEIZU and ZTE.

Also of notice this week is the arrival of Qualcomm’s new augmented actuality chip, the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1. The part is designed to energy a brand new era of slim AR wearables. It’s a low-power resolution that sits throughout completely different components of the glasses as a way to higher distribute its weight.

“We built Snapdragon AR2 to address the unique challenges of headworn AR and provide industry-leading processing, AI and connectivity that can fit inside a stylish form factor,” Qualcomm’s Hugo Swart mentioned in a launch. “With the technical and physical requirements for VR/MR and AR diverging, Snapdragon AR2 represents another metaverse-defining platform in our XR portfolio to help our OEM partners revolutionize AR glasses.”

The listing of producers creating {hardware} with the platform consists of Lenovo, LG, Nreal, OPPO, Pico, QONOQ, Rokid, Sharp, TCL, Vuzix and Xiaomi.