Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 8 Elite: Bringing Advanced AI Capabilities to Mobile Phones

Qualcomm revamps mobile phone chips for AI, signs Samsung and others

(Reuters) - Qualcomm said on Monday it is bringing technology first developed for its laptop chips to its mobile phone chips, aiming to make them more powerful for generative AI tasks. The San Diego-based company is the world's biggest seller of mobile phone chips. In an effort to expand its business, the company in 2021 hired a group of ex-Apple engineers to help it design laptop chips, which went on sale this year and are helping power AI features in Microsoft's Windows. Now, the technology developed by that team - a set of custom computing technology Qualcomm has branded "Oryon" - is being put into the company's mobile phone chips for the first time. The company has also re-worked the parts of the chip, which is called the Snapdragon 8 Elite, to handle tasks such as generating images and text. Qualcomm will offer software developers special tools beyond the ones already available in Alphabet's Android operating system to tap into those parts of the chip. "AI has been one of those where I think Google is moving fast, but we have our own technology to offer that end developer," Chris Patrick, Qualcomm's senior vice president and general manager for mobile handsets, told Reuters. Qualcomm said Samsung Electronics, Asustek Computer and Xiaomi, among several others, will use the new chip. (Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Qualcomm revamps mobile phone chips for AI, signs Samsung and others

Oct 21 (Reuters) - Qualcomm (QCOM.O), opens new tab said on Monday it is bringing technology first developed for its laptop chips to its mobile phone chips, aiming to make them more powerful for generative AI tasks. The San Diego-based company is the world's biggest seller of mobile phone chips. In an effort to expand its business, the company in 2021 hired a group of ex-Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab engineers to help it design laptop chips, which went on sale this year and are helping power AI features in Microsoft's (MSFT.O), opens new tab Windows. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Now, the technology developed by that team - a set of custom computing technology Qualcomm has branded "Oryon" - is being put into the company's mobile phone chips for the first time. The company has also re-worked the parts of the chip, which is called the Snapdragon 8 Elite, to handle tasks such as generating images and text. Qualcomm will offer software developers special tools beyond the ones already available in Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Android operating system to tap into those parts of the chip. Advertisement · Scroll to continue "AI has been one of those where I think Google is moving fast, but we have our own technology to offer that end developer," Chris Patrick, Qualcomm's senior vice president and general manager for mobile handsets, told Reuters. Qualcomm said Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), opens new tab, Asustek Computer (2357.TW), opens new tab and Xiaomi (1810.HK), opens new tab, among several others, will use the new chip. Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Berkrot Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Qualcomm revamps mobile phone chips for AI, signs Samsung and others

Nitin Kumar, VP, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, speaks about Qualcomm semiconductor collaborations with Samsung at Samsung's IFA 2024 presentation, where the company unveils its latest innovations and celebrates the possibilities AI can create for everyone, at CityCube on September 04, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. Qualcomm said on Monday it is bringing technology first developed for its laptop chips to its mobile phone chips, aiming to make them more powerful for generative AI tasks. The San Diego-based company is the world's biggest seller of mobile phone chips. In an effort to expand its business, the company in 2021 hired a group of ex-Apple engineers to help it design laptop chips, which went on sale this year and are helping power AI features in Microsoft's Windows. Now, the technology developed by that team - a set of custom computing technology Qualcomm has branded "Oryon" - is being put into the company's mobile phone chips for the first time. The company has also re-worked the parts of the chip, which is called the Snapdragon 8 Elite, to handle tasks such as generating images and text. Qualcomm will offer software developers special tools beyond the ones already available in Alphabet's Android operating system to tap into those parts of the chip.

Qualcomm's New Chips Power AI-Driven Phones: Samsung on Board

Qualcomm, on October 21, 2024, announced significant upgrades to its mobile phone chips for performing generative AI tasks. The world's largest chip maker will use its laptop chip technology to bring significantly enhanced capabilities in smartphones. The San Diego company has developed a new line of custom computing technology, branded "Oryon,". It will be used for the first time in mobile phone chips. Oryon is a technology that Qualcomm had originally put into its laptop chips, designed by a team of former Apple engineers in 2021. It would enhance the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip capabilities for image or text generation. Chris Patrick, Senior Vice President and General Manager for mobile handsets of Qualcomm said, "AI has been one of those where I think Google is moving fast, but we have our technology to offer that end developer." Qualcomm intends to provide specialised tools to software developers beyond the ones available in Google's Android operating system.

Qualcomm's New Chipset Brings Multi-Modal Generative AI To Android Phones, Boosting Competition With iPhone 16 - Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)

On Monday, chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. QCOM unveiled its latest high-end smartphone SoC, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which boasts a new Oryon CPU and enhanced AI capabilitie. What Happened: The Snapdragon 8 Elite replaces the Kryo CPUs previously used in Qualcomm's mobile chipsets. The Oryon CPU, dubbed a second-gen chipset by Qualcomm, includes two prime cores, six performance cores, an X80 5G modem-RF chip, and an Adreno GPU with a new sliced architecture. Chris Patrick, Qualcomm's mobile handset SVP, stated that the upgraded hardware would provide more desktop-like performance on smartphones. See Also: Jeff Bezos Would Have Named Amazon As 'Relentless' But Then Someone Said It Sounded Sinister -- He's Since Built A Business Empire That Knows No Limits Patrick said the new Oryon-powered Snapdragon chipset will enable a better AI experience "by offering personalized, multi-modal generative AI directly on the device enabling the understanding of speech, context, and images to enhance everything from productivity to creativity tasks." The Snapdragon 8 Elite also features an upgraded Hexagon NPU supporting on-device multimodal AI assistants that can handle text input as well as visuals. It also supports an on-device AI-powered video object eraser tool to remove distractions from video clips. Brands like Asus, Honor, OnePlus, Oppo, and Xiaomi are expected to launch devices featuring the new chipset in the coming weeks. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Why It Matters: This development comes on the heels of an analyst prediction that Qualcomm is set for a 50% surge in Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 shipments by late 2024. The company's stock price has already factored in the negative impact of Apple Inc. AAPL developing its own 5G chips, said the analysts. The chipmaker is poised to benefit from better-than-expected momentum in the fourth quarter of 2024 and favorable trends in 2025, according to Ming-Chi Kuo. Earlier in September, it was reported that Qualcomm had approached Intel Corp for a possible takeover, which if successful, could significantly bolster its market position. However, according to Benchmark analyst Cody Acree, " Qualcomm's ultimate acquisition of Intel is logically unlikely." Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Read Next: AI Power Demand Skyrockets, Nvidia CEO Lauds OpenAI, And Tesla's Optimus Robots Assisted By Humans: This Week In AI Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: Qualcomm Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

A new Qualcomm chip could compete with Apple Intelligence

The pill form of Novo Nordisk's drug Ozempic can cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes, according to a new study The company debuted its Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform with a new, second-generation Oryon CPU that it called the "[f]astest mobile CPU in the world," during its Snapdragon Summit on Monday. The new Snapdragon platform can support multimodal generative artificial intelligence features, Qualcomm said. The new Oryon CPU is 45% faster and 44% more power efficient, according to Qualcomm, which mostly designs chips for mobile devices with the Android operating system. The new Snapdragon 8 platform could help smartphone companies compete with Apple on the AI frontier, as the iPhone maker rolls out its Apple Intelligence capabilities. Apple also has a deal with ChatGPT maker OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT-4o into the new iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. Meanwhile, Qualcomm is reportedly interested in taking over Intel (INTC+0.42%) in a deal that could be worth $90 billion, the Wall Street Journal (NWSA+0.04%) reported in September. Alternative asset manager Apollo Global Management (APO-0.12%) had also offered an equity-like investment in Intel that could be worth as much as $5 billion, according to Bloomberg. Qualcomm could wait until after the U.S. presidential election next month to decide on buying Intel, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The people told Bloomberg that Qualcomm wants to see who will win the election before deciding on the deal due to the potential impacts on antitrust and tensions with China. By taking over Intel, Qualcomm could potentially scale, gain leadership in the market for mobile, PC, and server core processor units, or CPUs, and have access to Intel's sprawling chip fabrication plants, analysts at Bank of America Global Research (BAC-1.29%) said in a note. They added that combining Qualcomm's chip revenue of $33 billion with Intel's $52 billion revenue would make Qualcomm the largest semiconductor company in the world. However, the analysts said regulatory and financial challenges from a potential deal would outweigh those benefits. They are skeptical of a proposed takeover, and believe confusion over the deal could end up benefitting Intel's rivals.