Snapdragon chipsets are among the first to offer 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, to offer AI features with Galaxy AI. However, at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024, Apple raised the stakes when it announced the OS-level integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT on the iPhone. In a conversation with Gadgets 360, Qualcomm’s Chief Marketing Officer Don McGuire said that the Snapdragon platform is ready to offer on-device LLM capabilities to Android smartphones.
Qualcomm CMO Don McGuire on Snapdragon chipsets’ AI capabilities
When asked if Snapdragon chipsets can offer an OS-level integration of a large language model (LLM), McGuire said, “We can already do that today. We can already support Meta’s LLMs, we can already support Gemini, and we can already support OpenAI’s LLMs. We can already support the different models from AI hyperscalers on the Snapdragon platform.”
Don McGuire, CMO, Qualcomm
Photo Credit: X/@donnymac (Don McGuire)
The Qualcomm executive also highlighted that Snapdragon chipsets are ready to handle these LLMs because the company has been working with AI technology for almost 12 years. It has also developed its neural processing unit (NPU) in-house, which allowed the tech giant to optimise these features to run efficiently.
On the difference in approach between Appleand Qualcomm
“Basically, what Apple has done is that they have outsourced their AI to OpenAI. Now, they will have to go to Google and ask how we bring Gemini into this. They will eventually have to support all these different LLMs. So, it is a good start,” added McGuire.
McGuire also stated that Apple’s approach was similar to what Qualcomm has been doing for the last decade, which is to build on-device AI capabilities. “It is good to have that alignment from an ecosystem perspective,” he said.
However, the Qualcomm CMO emphasised that the company did not follow Apple’s approach since it has been working with AI for more than a decade and has built a solid foundation to handle tasks requiring high processing power. As a result, it can now offer these capabilities to smartphone makers when they want to onboard an LLM. “We have a democratised approach that is much broader than a vertical walled garden approach,” McGuire added.
McGuire also explained the reason behind Qualcomm’s open ecosystem approach and said, “We have always believed in democratisation of technology so it is not foreign that that’s the way we have set things up. But when you’re dealing with a closed ecosystem in a vertical model, there is only room for one thing at a time.”
“It is telling that when one of the biggest brands of devices that consumers use has finally recognised that this is important and that they have to bring a solution to the table,” he added.
