Qualcomm’s new chipset that will power flagship Android phones makes the iPhone seem outdated

Behind each new smartphone function is a strong chipset that brings it to life. With the trade shift towards on-device AI, a necessity for an much more superior and succesful system-on-a-chip (SoC) has emerged, and Qualcomm’s newest iteration goals to fulfill this. 

On Monday, at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit, the corporate unveiled its latest cellular platform, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which it claims is probably the most highly effective and quickest processor on this planet. The chip is the primary of the flagship cellular platforms beneath the brand new “Elite” branding, highlighting its improved graphical efficiency.

The brand new cellular platform is powered by a mix of a second-generation Qualcomm Oryon CPU, Qualcomm Adreno GPU, and enhanced Qualcomm Hexagon NPU. The latter is integral for optimizing on-device AI duties like picture technology, textual content translation, and many others.

Different key highlights of the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip embody a 24MB whole cache, 4.32 GHz CPU max frequency, 45% single-core enchancment, and 62% quicker internet shopping, promising an enhanced person expertise with superior processing capabilities. That is all fancy jargon to counsel that this subsequent wave of flagship Android telephones, coming as quickly as late 2024, will probably be properly geared up for the following advances in AI options.

“At this time, our second technology of the Qualcomm Oryon CPU debuts in our flagship Cellular Platform — it is a main leap ahead, and we anticipate customers to be thrilled with the brand new experiences enabled by our CPU expertise,” stated Chris Patrick, SVP and GM of cellular handsets at Qualcomm Applied sciences, in a press launch.

Notably, the Snapdragon 8 Elite makes multi-modal generative AI functions on Snapdragon-powered units extra doable. As generative AI functions develop into extra superior, they’re evolving previous the purpose of textual content inputs and outputs. Many can now settle for multimodal information, similar to photographs, movies, and audio, for far more context-aware help.

“It (Snapdragon 8 Elite) revolutionizes cellular experiences by providing personalised, multi-modal generative AI straight on the machine, enabling the understanding of speech, context, and pictures to reinforce all the pieces from productiveness to creativity duties whereas prioritizing person privateness,” added Patrick. 

Some great benefits of on-device processing embody quicker processing velocity, as customers expertise much less latency by forgoing sending information to the cloud, and elevated safety, as their information by no means leaves the machine. Different advantages embody minimizing power used at information facilities, making it a extra sustainable enterprise various. 

The flagship chipset will even energy different cellular options, such because the photo-taking and photo-editing expertise, with options like AI relighting, a Video Magic Eraser, and an “AI Pet Suite. ” It would additionally improve gaming with CPU-intensive multiplayer video games and higher visuals throughout the board.

Qualcomm has not revealed which flagship telephones will sport the brand new chipset. Nevertheless, it did share that the Snapdragon 8 Elite will probably be adopted by main producers, together with Samsung, Asus, OnePlus, Oppo, Honor, iQOO, RealMe, Redmi, and Xiaomi — with the primary machine scheduled for launch within the coming weeks.

Disclosure: The price of Sabrina Ortiz’s journey to Maui, Hawaii for Qualcomm Summit was lined by Qualcomm, a typical trade apply for long-distance journeys. The judgments and opinions of ZDNET’s writers and editors are all the time unbiased of the businesses we cowl.