Qualcomm declared the launch of two new chips, the X Elite which is designed for PCs and laptops, and the Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3, a newer version for higher-end Android phones. This announcement has made it clear that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a new competitive factor in the smartphone industry, as the Qualcom chip for phones also provides enhanced AI capabilities.
On Tuesday, Qualcomm unveiled two new chips designed to run AI-powered software including the recent industry-wide popular large language models (LLMs) without needing an internet connection. The interest in AI applications has skyrocketed since 2022 when Stable Diffusion's image generator and OpenAI's ChatGPT were released. Such "generative AI" models require a significant amount of computational power and they've chiefly been executed on power-hungry Nvidia graphics processors found in the cloud.The new silicon consists of Qualcomm's X Elite chip created for PCs and laptops as well as the Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3 designed for more advanced Android phones. The pace at which a smartphone chip carries out AI tasks may become an area of competition amongst the top Android models from manufacturers like Asus, Sony and OnePlus compared to Apple's iPhones which are annually granting new AI features. Qualcomm's newly released Snapdragon chip is able to carry out AI tasks much quicker than its prior processor, reducing the time it takes to form an image from 15 seconds on its predecessor to less than a second according to a Qualcomm executive in a conversation.”When today someone buys a phone," Alex Katouzian, Qualcomm's senior vice president for mobile, states, "they ask how fast is the CPU, how much memory is on this phone, and what does the camera look like? Over the next two to three years, people will ask what kind of AI capabilities are on it?"
Nvidia stock has benefited from the AI boom, while Qualcomm has largely been left behind, despite their smartphone chips being used in high volumes and featuring NPUs since 2018. Qualcomms' NPUs allow for improvements in photos and other features. Their latest chip, they report, can manage AI models of up to 10 billion parameters, albeit smaller than OpenAI's GPT3's 175 billion parameters. Qualcomm has argued that running language models locally, as opposed to in the cloud, is faster and more secure. Examples of this were showcased with Stable Diffusion AI models which use AI to generate images based on strings of words. Last year's Qualcomm chipset, the Gen 2, took 15 seconds to create an image, but this year's chip can do it in half a second. This can enhance the performance of AI applications like virtual assistants. Qualcomm also commented that they are working with Microsoft to optimise its chips for AI software, and that their Series 8 Gen 3 Snapdragon chip, which will feature on devices from brands including Asus, Sony and OnePlus, is likely to be available for those greater than $500 in early 2021. This technology will then likely be carried down to cheaper devices too.
Qualcomm's X Elite PC chip is based on Arm and is poised to become a rival to Intel's x86 chips in desktop and laptop computers. It employs technology that the company attained with its purchase of Nuvia, an entity founded by ex-Apple engineers and that is now at the center of a legal dispute with Arm. Qualcomm anticipates that laptops with the chip, featuring Oryon cores, will be released in mid-2021. The company has reported that the chip outperforms the Apple M2 Max and uses less power. Not to be missed: CNBC PRO stories such as how to invest for retirement in 5 years, Morgan Stanley's assessment of the average stock breaking down and the S&P 500 projected to reach 3,900 before the end of the year, the booming industry that is flourishing as the population ages, and the stock in the chip sector that Wall Street is showing deep affection for (which is not Nvidia).
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