Qualcomm Sets 2028 For 6G Testing With Pre-Commercial Devices, Says AI Will Soon Be Everywhere

At the Snapdragon Summit held in Maui, Qualcomm signaled that the arrival of 6G technology might be closer than many expect. On the Summit's opening day, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon revealed that the company plans to start testing 6G technology in 2028 using pre-commercial devices. He also reminded the audience of Qualcomm's track record, pointing out that the company introduced 5G technology back in 2018, two years ahead of the originally planned 2020 launch.

Artificial Intelligence was another major focus of Amon's keynote. He emphasized that the new generation of Snapdragon chips will be centered around embedding AI into every device.“We are going to bring AI everywhere, leading the next generation of innovation,” he stated, highlighting the soon-to-come shift where AI becomes the fundamental user interface across devices.

New Snapdragon Platforms and AI Expansion

Celebrating its 10th edition, the Snapdragon Summit also saw Qualcomm unveiling its latest mobile and computing platforms: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Snapdragon X2 Elite. These new platforms bring enhanced performance and energy efficiency, with a strong emphasis on AI capabilities. Amon elaborated on how AI's influence will stretch far beyond smartphones, extending into PCs, wearables, and a wide array of connected gadgets. He painted a picture of an ecosystem where each device acts as an intelligent assistant, cooperating with a user's smartphone to handle daily tasks-from managing scheduling conflicts to sending financial reminders.

This vision builds on last year's focus at the Summit, which was on individualized AI assistants and on-device large language models. According to Amon, the next step involves scaling these AI capabilities by merging cloud computing power with edge processing. This combination will enable AI to respond in real time while ensuring that users' data remains protected.

Partner Collaborations and Future AI Directions

The Summit featured notable contributions from Qualcomm's partners, including Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, and Rick Osterloh of Google.

Narayen expressed excitement about how Qualcomm's technology will empower creators, saying,“I am very excited about how people will take different Qualcomm powered devices and use them for creativity. We are working to create a firefly model that is personalised. So, people can create things in their own style. That kind of power was not available earlier. Qualcomm will allow and empower us to do that.” He believes this development will broaden access to creative tools for many more users.

Rick Osterloh of Google spoke about efforts to bridge the divide between smartphone and computer operating systems.“In the past, we've had very different systems between what we're building in PCs and what we're building in smartphones,” he explained.“We're working to combine that... bringing Gemini models, our assistant, and the entire app and developer community into the PC domain.”

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