Qualcomm Launches Two New Smartphone Chips With Focus on AI

Qualcomm has launched two new smartphone chips with an emphasis on artificial intelligence capabilities, the company announced.

According to Qualcomm, its new top-tier chip is capable of running a 30 billion parameter mixture-of-experts model locally on the device, without relying on cloud-based processing.

Running larger AI models directly on a smartphone, rather than sending requests to remote servers, can offer benefits including faster response times, improved privacy and reduced dependence on network connectivity.

The mixture-of-experts architecture referenced by Qualcomm is a technique used in AI model design that activates only relevant portions of a larger model for a given task, allowing for more efficient processing compared to running the full model at all times.

The new chips are expected to be integrated into upcoming smartphones from device manufacturers that use Qualcomm's mobile processors, as competition among chipmakers to support on-device AI features continues to intensify.

Qualcomm's push into more capable on-device AI processing reflects a broader industry trend of smartphone makers highlighting AI features as a key differentiator in new devices.