Qualcomm launches two new smartphone chips with emphasis on AI

Qualcomm today announced two flagship smartphone processors, called Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, with a focus on facilitating better AI-focused features.

At its annual Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm said that the new chips can aid in improved personalization for AI agents. The chips have new sensing hubs that can run small models of up to 200 million parameters. With the new sensing hub, smartphones can run a personal scribe locally and differentiate between speakers. Plus, it can build memory based on your usage for better suggestions for automating tasks. The company said that it can run a complete voice-in and voice-out agent through the new chip

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 has a new accelerator element that’s designed to run models in a more efficient way. The high-end Extreme version can run a 30 billion parameter mixture-of-experts (MoE) model locally. This means that while the overall model size is 30B, the model only activates a certain number of parameters for a particular task.

For comparison, at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June, Apple released a 20-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model, the most advanced of its third generation of foundation models.

The new Qualcomm CPU also provides pixel-level control for cameras to facilitate more pro-level experiences, along with improved stabilization and motion understanding. The Extreme version can support video recording at 8k60fps and at 4K240 for ultra HD slow-motion. It also enables the new Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec for pro-level recording.

What’s more, both chips can use AI to boost vocals and reduce noise. Plus, it has Qualcomm’s new voice bubble tech, which isolates users’ noise during calls.

At the event, Motorola announced its Motorola Signature 27 smartphone, powered by the Snapdragon Gen 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, with general availability sometime this year.

Qualcomm has been working on more than 40 AI devices, but there is still a belief that a lot of people will use their phones for AI rather than other dedicated devices. Nothing co-founder Carl Pei has hinted at this trend in the past, and more recently, new Apple CEO John Ternus reinforced the same line of thought during the iPhone Duo launch earlier this month.

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Ivan Mehta

Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web.

You can contact or verify outreach from Ivan by emailing im@ivanmehta.com or via encrypted message at ivan.42 on Signal.

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