Today, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with a big on-device generative AI focus for the upcoming generation of Android phones. The company also shared “Snapdragon Seamless” as a means to build more cross-device experiences.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
The chip is built on a 4 nm process with another new CPU core configuration that starts with the Prime ARM Cortex X4 clocked at 3.3 GHz. This is followed by five Performance (3.2 GHz) and two Efficiency (2.3 GHz) cores. In all, the Kryo CPU is said to be 30% faster and 20% more power efficient. The Adreno GPU offers 25% better performance while being 25% more power efficient. On the gaming front, there’s 1.5x better ray tracing.
Both components, along with a Hexagon NPU (neural processing unit) that is 98% faster and 40% more efficient compared to the last generation, form Qualcomm’s AI Engine, which is geared towards on-device generative AI use cases.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can run large language models (LLMs) – specifically, 7B Llama 2 – locally at up to 15 tokens per second. Qualcomm demoed assistants based on Llama. There’s also support for language vision models (LVM) and transformer network-based automatic speech recognition (ASR), thus making it Qualcomm’s first AI Engine to support multi-modal generative AI models.
Another thing being touted is the fastest mobile Stable Diffusion “in the world,” at under one second per image, and Qualcomm is partnering to make it available in Snapchat. There’s also the latest Sensing Hub to power always-on, low-power personalization experiences.
One place generative AI capabilities can be leveraged is the camera. Features include Video Object Eraser to remove selected people and objects, as well as AI-powered Night Vision video. Another on-device demo showed taking a picture and being able to expand the surroundings.
Semantic segmentation that identifies and optimizes faces, hair, clothes, and sky supports up to 12 layers and can work on both the front and rear cameras. Qualcomm is particularly pushing having both sides active at the same time. For example, always-sensing cameras could power face unlock and QR code scanning, while a “Vlogger’s View” lets you simultaneously capture both and superimpose the selfie feed over the main recording.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will also support Dolby HDR photo capture, allowing for over 1 billion shades of color compared to the 16.7 million possible with JPEG.
As always, it’s up to OEMs — and software developers — to decide whether they build features based on all the new capabilities that Qualcomm is making possible. Asus, Honor, iQOO, Meizu, Nio, Nubia, OnePlus, Oppo, realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE will be releasing Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices, with the first launching “in the coming weeks.”
Snapdragon Seamless
Meanwhile, Qualcomm also announced “Snapdragon Seamless” as a “cross-platform technology” to enable continuity experiences between Android, Windows, and other Snapdragon devices (e.g., headphones with Qualcomm chips).
Specifically, Snapdragon Seamless devices will be able to “discover each other and share information to work as one integrated system.” This technology is found on phones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Windows PCs powered by the Snapdragon X Elite, and Qualcomm’s other wearable and hearable chips. Examples include:
- “Mice and keyboards can work seamlessly across PCs, phones and tablets”
- “Files and windows can be dragged and dropped across different types of devices”
- “Earbuds can switch intelligently based on the priority of an audio source”
- “XR can extend the abilities of smartphones”
Partners collaborating with Qualcomm include Google, Microsoft, Xiaomi, Honor, Lenovo, and OPPO. Android already has features like Nearby Share for files, while other OEMs have their own solutions.
In the future, Snapdragon Seamless will come to XR, Auto, and IoT platforms.
Note: Qualcomm paid for travel and accommodations for this launch event, but had no input on editorial content.
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