Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips focused on on-phone AI

In short: Qualcomm introduced two new high-end smartphone chips that are built to run more AI features directly on the phone.

What happened

Qualcomm announced two flagship smartphone processors called Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. The company shared the news at its annual Snapdragon Summit.

Qualcomm said the chips are designed to support more AI features, including “AI agents” (assistants that can take actions for you, like a helpful app that can listen, understand, and respond). The chips include a new “sensing hub,” which Qualcomm says can run smaller AI models up to 200 million parameters. Parameters are like adjustable knobs inside an AI system, and more knobs can help it handle more complex tasks.

With this sensing hub, Qualcomm says phones could run a personal “scribe” on the device, tell different speakers apart, and build a kind of memory based on how you use your phone to suggest automations. Qualcomm also said the chip can run a full voice-in and voice-out assistant locally, meaning the processing happens on the phone instead of being sent to a server.

Qualcomm said the higher-end Extreme version can run a 30 billion parameter mixture-of-experts model locally. A mixture-of-experts model is like having a team of specialists where only the most relevant experts “wake up” for each task, instead of using the whole team every time.

The chips also add camera upgrades, including more control at the pixel level (tiny dots that make up an image), improved stabilization, and support for high-end video recording on the Extreme version. Qualcomm said both chips can also boost vocals and reduce background noise during calls, including a “voice bubble” feature that aims to isolate a user’s voice.

Motorola also announced a Motorola Signature 27 phone using the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, with general availability planned sometime this year.

Why it matters

If more AI work happens on your phone, some features could feel faster and rely less on an internet connection. It can also mean less audio and text needs to be sent off your device, which may matter for privacy, depending on how phone makers use these tools.

Source: TechCrunch AI