Mobile World Congress Barcelona is always full of announcements from companies like Qualcomm, and MWC 2024 was no exception. With this year’s release, Qualcomm has focused on its 5G and Wi-Fi leader products, enhancing spatial computing and AI capabilities.
The common thread in almost all of Qualcomm’s major announcements was deeper integration of AI into products across business units. Qualcomm’s investments in AI have been years in the making, and now the company is communicating its investments and capabilities more clearly than ever. For some companies, AI has been a fad or a trend to jump on, but for Qualcomm, AI has long served as an accelerator for its products, enabling “special sauce” capabilities that competitors cannot easily match. Ta. Qualcomm also continues to invest in AI solutions to help OEMs and developers better leverage the built-in capabilities of hardware platforms.
Snapdragon X80 — 5G modem
This is Qualcomm’s 7th generation 5G modem and 2nd generation AI modem with dedicated Tensor cores. Theoretical maximum throughput is 10 Gbps downlink and 3.5 Gbps uplink. According to Qualcomm, this is the first 5G modem to integrate NB-NTN for satellite communications. It also supports 6-carrier aggregation in the Sub6 band for very fast non-mmWave speeds, improving the user experience for cellular networks with fragmented spectrum retention. The X80 is already sampling and is expected to ship to OEM devices later this year. I’m guessing that his X80 will probably be featured in Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon 5G SoC, which will be announced for next year’s flagship phones later this year.
FastConnect 7900 — Wi-Fi 7 Chip
FastConnect 7900 is Qualcomm’s next-generation Wi-Fi 7 solution that leverages deeper wireless integration and AI to enhance users’ wireless experience. FastConnect 7900 adds his UWB integration to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in a single package manufactured on his 6nm process node and improves power efficiency. Performance still maintains a maximum throughput of 5.8 Gbps across the 320 MHz spectrum, but Qualcomm claims a 40% reduction in power consumption compared to FastConnect 7800. This is a considerable improvement and can significantly improve battery life for devices that are continuously sending or receiving data. Via Wi-Fi – This can be especially useful for compact XR devices where every bit of power is important. Qualcomm has also redesigned its RF front-end module product to pair with FastConnect 7900. Together, they offer 50% RF power savings, and when combined with the new high-band simultaneous module, they also reduce PCB size by 50%.
Bringing Wi-Fi 7 to your car
Just before MWC 2024, Qualcomm also announced the QCA 6797AQ, the first Wi-Fi 7 solution for automotive applications. Qualcomm says it is the industry’s first automotive-grade Wi-Fi 7 solution and seamlessly integrates with other connectivity solutions already in cars. Deploying Wi-Fi 7 in your car will significantly improve range, throughput, and latency, while also improving power consumption. Considering the number of vehicles that require Wi-Fi for OTA updates, having a higher-performing Wi-Fi solution in the car can mean the difference between downloading updates in seconds versus hours. may occur. This connection is bidirectional. This means that automotive service centers can also use this 5.8 Gbps Wi-Fi link to quickly download data from the vehicle during servicing without having to connect any cables. Considering that most flagship Android smartphones now ship with Wi-Fi 7, by adding Wi-Fi 7 to vehicles, automakers can increase the number of devices that consumers’ phones already use. Stay up to date with the latest Wi-Fi technology available.
Vodafone’s XR Hub
At MWC 2024, Qualcomm spoke in detail about the XR Hub, a concept developed in partnership with Vodafone. This concept separates computing from the display of XR devices. Powered by the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 chipset, the glasses and Qualcomm’s latest Wi-Fi products are used to stream graphics from a separate computing box run by a smartphone-class processor. XR Hub can then further enhance the experience by connecting to even more computing capabilities in the cloud using fiber or 5G networks. Vodafone calls this HyperRealityHub. It also offers a multi-user experience called HyperRealityHub+, where multiple AR headsets share the same computing box.
While this solution is clearly still in its infancy, it offers a way for companies to distribute computing and reduce the size, cost, and complexity of the XR glasses themselves. All of this works with his Snapdragon Spaces, Qualcomm’s cross-platform software solution that allows developers to design software for many different models of his XR devices simultaneously. I suspect that ISPs and carriers would be most interested in deploying this type of solution to consumers, especially if they also run end-user television and other entertainment services from the same provider. And having a device that potentially offers an enhanced TV experience beyond just XR could be a way to subsidize the cost of computing.
Qualcomm AI Hub for developers
Qualcomm does a lot of the heavy lifting to make it as easy as possible for developers to deploy AI models across the company’s various chipsets and types of devices. To support this, we introduced AI Hub, a library of AI models fully optimized for deployment across Qualcomm’s platforms. The company already has 75 pre-optimized AI models, which it claims can improve inference by up to 4x. These models are available on Qualcomm’s website, Hugging Face and GitHub. These models are the logical place for developers to go to get these models. Qualcomm’s AI hub also supports devices and chipsets other than smartphones, including XR devices and robotics.
Gigabit 5G phones for less than $99
In addition to many high-end experiences, Qualcomm is also exploring ways to bring 5G smartphones to the sub-$99 price range. This is important because all mobile networks in the world are moving to 5G and no one wants to lose customers to the switch. Additionally, making 5G phones more accessible could improve user experience and enable new 5G services. (For more on this, see my recent report on the state of 5G and what U.S. carriers are doing to improve it.)
According to Ericsson’s November 2023 Mobility Report, of the 8.5 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, only 1.5 billion are 5G. While North America currently has 5G penetration at 61%, other regions, including sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe, are well below 50% and are expected to reach 50% by 2029. It is predicted that it will not. It is expected to become popular even in Latin America. This is why Qualcomm’s goal is to simplify his 5G phones by promoting his 2-antenna 5G standalone solution. Qualcomm claims this will increase the number of 5G users by 2.8 billion and increase speeds by up to five times compared to 4G in the same price range. Qualcomm is calling this initiative “5G for All.”
5G Advanced and 6G R&D Demo
Prior to MWC 2024, I had the opportunity to visit Qualcomm’s headquarters in San Diego and witness some of the R&D demos that will be showcased at the conference. After detailed presentations on different areas of innovation, the rest of the audience and I were able to check out some of the R&D devices in action. The first demonstration was the Giga-MIMO prototype, which shows a Giga-MIMO antenna array operating in the 13 GHz band with 4096 antenna elements. Given how congested the existing spectrum is, Qualcomm is actively working with government and non-governmental organizations to prepare the 7 GHz to 16 GHz band for use in 5G Advanced or even 6G. doing. Qualcomm says this Giga-MIMO technology enables mid-band-like coverage at these higher frequencies using the same cellular site density, avoiding costly densification projects. At a preview event, Qualcomm showed how this antenna array works, actively demonstrating reflection tests and signal behavior in a controlled environment.
We also demonstrated how to test the non-terrestrial network satellite capabilities of the new X80 5G modem in the same warehouse that Qualcomm likes to use for research and development demonstrations. To accomplish this, Qualcomm created a robotic arm designed to simulate the signals and speed of satellites flying overhead. This will allow the company’s engineers to test things like how the system manages handoffs between satellites. Qualcomm simulated video calls on this test satellite network and demonstrated that it can reliably maintain connectivity even in challenging applications such as video calls. While this R&D demo was impressive, I think it will still be years before we can make video calls using NTN.
In the final two demos, Qualcomm focused on spatial computing. First, they created a digital twin of the warehouse and simulated its wireless coverage using a model based on physical scans of the space. They then used automated guided vehicles to verify coverage and fine-tune the simulation model. This application of digital twins and real-world AGVs to verify coverage and validate physics-based simulations can be used in the factories and warehouses of companies looking to implement wireless communications.
Last but not least, Qualcomm is introducing one of its Boundless AR features, which combines smartphone-connected Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 reference design AR glasses and cloud rendering to leverage dynamic distributed computing over 5G connectivity. provided me with a practical demonstration of the Qualcomm demonstrated this with a 5G sub-7 GHz network using Ericsson infrastructure and Hololite’s cloud rendering platform. We connected these through Snapdragon Spaces and seamlessly transitioned between edge and cloud rendering for both our car visualization and digital twin demos in Barcelona. Qualcomm demonstrated how its system analyzes network performance and frame rates and seamlessly switches between local and cloud rendering to ensure the best user experience. This type of dynamic distributed computing allows more people to access high-quality AR experiences with good connectivity, and establishes an experience floor using local computing until connectivity improves. will help you.
conclusion
Qualcomm once again made headlines at Mobile World Congress, but these are just a few of the announcements the company made at this year’s event. These announcements are literally too many to cover in one of his articles, but I recommend following my colleague Will Townsend’s coverage of MWC for his 5G infrastructure component of the show .
Qualcomm’s launch at MWC puts it squarely at the intersection of 5G, AI, and spatial computing, and that not many, if any, companies are innovating as aggressively in the space. revealed. After all, Qualcomm recently became the second largest patent assignee in the United States, surpassing IBM. At the same time, his QTL itself, Qualcomm’s IP licensing arm, is doing very well. I don’t think this is the end of hearing from Qualcomm about his innovations in AI, 5G, and spatial computing, so expect this to continue with the next series of events and presentations this year. Mobile World Congress 2024 Barcelona is underway this week, so stay tuned for more coverage from me and the rest of the Moor Insights & Strategy team.
Moor Insights & Strategy, like all technology industry research and analyst firms, provides or offers paid services to technology companies. These services include research, analysis, advisory, consulting, benchmarking, acquisition matchmaking, video and speaker sponsorship. Among the companies mentioned in this article, Moor Insights & Strategy has had or currently has paid business relationships with Ericsson, Microsoft, and Qualcomm.
