Qualcomm Targets 40 AI Wearables With New XR Chip and START Toolkit
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · Jun 16
Qualcomm Targets 40 AI Wearables With New XR Chip and START Toolkit
3 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Jun 16
Summary
More than 40 AI wearable designs are now in Qualcomm’s pipeline, CEO Cristiano Amon said, spanning jewelry, camera-equipped earbuds, pins and watches as the company bets computing will move beyond smartphones.
Qualcomm paired that push with Snapdragon Reality Elite for mixed-reality glasses and START, a turnkey hardware-software stack meant to speed smart-glasses launches and lower barriers for new device makers.
Reality Elite delivers up to 60% higher GPU, 30% higher CPU and 160% higher NPU performance than Qualcomm’s prior XR platform, and can run a 3-billion-parameter model at 45 tokens per second.
START initially offers three white-label smart-glasses reference designs, with Inspecs and O’Neill among early partners, while Reality Elite is set to power XREAL Project Aura and a device from Play for Dream.
Amon said always-on wearables that can see the world around users will supply context for AI agents, positioning Qualcomm as the silicon layer for whatever platform follows the phone.