At the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit 2023 in Maui, the tech giant announced its highly anticipated Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. This new platform is expected to power upcoming flagship smartphones, potentially including devices like the Galaxy S24 and the OnePlus 12, among other high-end phones set to debut in 2024. While the exact nature of its AI features remains shrouded in mystery, this emphasis on AI capabilities is at the core of Qualcomm’s latest platform.
In contrast to conventional processing platforms, which typically rely on CPUs for application processing and GPUs for graphics and specialized tasks, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 boasts its dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU). The NPU is specifically engineered for running machine learning (ML) applications and functions. Notably, Qualcomm is taking an open approach by not restricting its NPU to any single company’s ML features.
Machine learning takes center stage for Qualcomm in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. This is exemplified by its involvement in projects such as Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chipset, implementing ML concepts. Additionally, Microsoft has tested its Copilot AI software on Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon X Elite laptop chipset. Now, smartphone manufacturers will be able to integrate AI features into their devices through the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform.
A striking demonstration of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 showcased its capabilities using the Stable Diffusion generative AI image engine. It generated a new image from a prompt request directly on a mobile device, rather than relying on cloud computing, and accomplished this in under one second. The Gen 3 chipset can harness large language models (LLM), like Meta’s Llama model, to produce generative text responses on the device, leveraging billions of potential instruction parameters.
Qualcomm revealed that several well-known manufacturers, including ASUS, Honor, iQOO, MEIZU, NIO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE, will be incorporating the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 into their devices. The initial devices featuring this chipset are expected to hit the market in the coming weeks, with Qualcomm’s announcement positioning them for a swift release.
While companies such as Samsung and Motorola (Lenovo) are not mentioned in the list of manufacturers, this omission does not necessarily indicate that they won’t be using the next-gen Snapdragon chipset. Instead, they may choose to unveil their own announcements separately.
The first smartphone to be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform will be the Xiaomi 14. Xiaomi’s President, William Lu, pre-announced this device during the event and highlighted that, despite not being labeled as a “Pro” model, it will deliver top-tier performance, as expected from the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phone.
Additionally, Qualcomm confirmed that Xiaomi would be adopting all the technologies demonstrated at the Snapdragon Summit, encompassing the generative AI features and new image editing capabilities. This choice highlights the significant role of smartphone manufacturers in determining the extent to which the NPU’s potential is realized. For example, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can magnify images by up to two times, offering the ability to zoom out from a picture and generate a new peripheral scene. However, it is up to device makers to develop software to take advantage of these features.
The critical question remains whether the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can outperform Apple’s in-house chipsets. Over time, Apple’s mobile processors have consistently surpassed Android phones in both benchmark tests and real-world performance, posing a challenge to Qualcomm’s latest offering. While Qualcomm directly targeted the Apple M2 laptop chip when introducing its new laptop processor, the Snapdragon X Elite, no such challenge was issued for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The verdict on how it stacks up against Apple’s Bionic and A17 Pro chips will depend on hands-on testing with the best Gen 3 devices.
Qualcomm has long emphasized the importance of AI in mobile devices, asserting that AI is the future of smartphones. Nevertheless, the precise nature of AI’s role and influence in shaping the future of mobile devices remains uncertain. AI has currently been showcased as a means to enhance features and perform various tasks more efficiently, but its transformative potential has yet to be fully realized. Ultimately, it will be up to developers and device manufacturers to determine which features to harness using machine learning, leaving the future of AI in mobile devices open to interpretation.
Inquiries about the next generation of mobile computing and the specific ways in which it will alter daily interactions compared to current devices were met with uncertainty. Qualcomm acknowledged the potential of its chipset but admitted that the path to realizing this potential has not been entirely defined, emphasizing that the future remains unclear.
