Snapdragon chipsets are among the first to bring generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to Android smartphones (second only to Google's Tensor SoC). The Samsung Galaxy S24 series became the first non-Pixel Android smartphone, equipped with its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which offers AI features with Galaxy AI. However, at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024, Apple upped the ante when it announced OS-level integration of OpenAI's ChatGPT on the iPhone. In a conversation with Gadgets 360, Qualcomm marketing director Don McGuire said that the Snapdragon platform is ready to bring on-device LLM capabilities to Android smartphones.
Qualcomm CMO Don McGuire on the AI capabilities of Snapdragon chipsets
When asked if Snapdragon chipsets can offer OS-level integration of a large language model (LLM), McGuire said: “We can do that today. We can already support Meta LLMs, already we can support Gemini and we can already support OpenAI's LLMs. We can already support the different AI hyperscaler models on the Snapdragon platform.”
Don McGuire, CMO, Qualcomm
Photo credit: X/@donnymac (Don McGuire)
The Qualcomm executive also emphasized that Snapdragon chipsets are ready to handle these LLMs because the company has been working with AI technology for nearly 12 years. It has also developed its Neural Processing Unit (NPU) in-house, which allowed the tech giant to optimize these functions to run efficiently.
About the difference in focus between Apple and Qualcomm
“Basically what Apple has done is they've outsourced their AI to OpenAI. Now, they're going to have to go to Google and ask us how do we bring Gemini into this. They're going to eventually have to support all these different LLMs. So it's a good start,” added McGuire.
McGuire also claimed that Apple's approach was similar to what Qualcomm has been doing for the past decade, which is to build AI capabilities into the device. “It's good to have that alignment from an ecosystem perspective,” he said.
However, the Qualcomm CMO emphasized that the company did not follow Apple's approach, as it has been working with AI for more than a decade and has built a solid foundation for handling tasks that require a lot of processing power . As a result, it can now offer these capabilities to smartphone manufacturers when they want to join an LLM. “We have a democratized approach that is much broader than a vertical walled garden approach,” McGuire added.
McGuire also explained the reason for Qualcomm's open ecosystem approach, saying, “We've always believed in the democratization of technology, so it's no surprise that this is the way we've set things up. But when it's a closed ecosystem in a vertical model, there's only room for one thing at a time.”
“It's telling that one of the biggest brands of devices that consumers use has finally recognized that this is important and that they have to put a solution on the table,” he added.
