Qualcomm announces two new platforms for AI wearables and mixed-reality glasses
8 reported
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said Tuesday that the company is working on over 40 different AI wearable devices, including jewelry, earbuds with cameras, pins, and watches. To support that vision, Qualcomm announced two new offerings: Snapdragon Reality Elite for mixed-reality glasses and the Scalable Turnkey AI-Ready Toolkit (START) for AI devices, starting with smart glasses. The Snapdragon Reality Elite delivers up to 60% improvement in GPU performance, up to 30% in CPU performance, and up to 160% in NPU performance compared to its previous XR platform, according to the company. Qualcomm says the platform can run a 3-billion-parameter language model at 45 tokens per second and supports 4.4K per-eye resolution at 90 fps. START consists of an AR chip, a software platform, companion apps, and a white-label program offering three reference designs. Amon argued that as companies seek more real-world data from users for AI agents, a new wave of hardware startups will emerge, with implications for established smartphone players like Apple and Samsung.
What’s reported
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said the company is working on over 40 different AI wearable devices.
Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Reality Elite for mixed-reality glasses and START for AI devices.
Snapdragon Reality Elite offers up to 60% GPU, 30% CPU, and 160% NPU performance improvements over the previous XR platform.
The platform can run a 3-billion-parameter language model at 45 tokens per second.
It supports 4.4K per-eye resolution at 90 fps.
START includes an AR chip, software platform, companion apps, and a white-label program with three reference designs.
Eyewear manufacturers Inspecs and O’Neill (owned by TitanFlex) will be among the first partners in the white-label program.
Amon made his comments to CNBC.
Key figures
Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm CEO
Inspecs, eyewear manufacturer
O’Neill, eyewear manufacturer owned by TitanFlex
Sources: TechCrunch
