Qualcomm CEO touts company's generative AI opportunity during annual shareholder meeting
Qualcomm (QCOM) CEO Cristiano Amon took the virtual stage during his company’s annual shareholder’s meeting on Tuesday to tout the chip giant’s AI efforts. Qualcomm’s processors are found in millions of Android-powered smartphones around the world, and its latest, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, is meant to power on-device generative AI apps.
“We are bringing Gen AI capabilities to smartphone users worldwide,” Amon said in his prepared remarks. “Our leadership in premium- and high-tier Android devices continues with our latest Snapdragon mobile platforms, which now feature significantly enhanced AI processing performance,” he added.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is found in Samsung’s latest Galaxy S24 line of smartphones and helps process some of its on-board generative AI features including photo editing tools like Samsung’s Generative Edit, which allows you to quickly erase or move subjects in your shots.
The company is also aiming to take on Intel (INTC), AMD (AMD), and Nvidia (NVDA) in the AI PC space. All four chip companies aspire to be the go-to company for on-device generative AI applications for laptops and desktops. Intel’s Core Ultra chips are already on the market and available in high-end laptops from the likes of HP, Dell, and others, while Nvidia says computers with its graphics chips can be considered AI PCs.
Qualcomm will release its Snapdragon X Elite chip in the coming months, but the company already claims that the processor outmatches Intel’s offering in AI workloads.
“The Snapdragon X Elite — our first implementation of the custom Qualcomm Oryon CPU — features industry-leading AI performance and significant improvements in performance and battery life,” Amon said. “It is poised to set the industry benchmark for on-device Gen AI and Copilot experiences.”
The majority of the generative AI experiences most people use are still processed in the cloud including ChatGPT, Microsoft’s various Copilots, and Google’s Gemini platform. But as generative AI models become more specialized for certain tasks, the thinking goes, on-device processing will become the go-to means of interacting with the technology.
Chip companies also say on-device generative AI applications will be more secure because you won’t have to send out your data over the web. But so far, there aren’t many onboard generative AI apps for the average consumer.
Generative AI is seen as a potential means of boosting smartphone and PC sales at a time when the markets for both devices are trying to return to solid growth following a major slowdown after a huge sales increase in the early days of the pandemic.
Still, while shares of Nvidia and AMD have benefited handsomely from the generative AI boom, Qualcomm hasn’t seen the same outsized reaction. Shares of the company are up 33% over the last 12 months, which is impressive, but nowhere near AMD’s 107% or Nvidia’s incredible 226%. Even Intel shares have outperformed Qualcomm’s, rising 48% during the same period.
That said, the market for on-device generative AI is still in its early stages, and if apps do begin to take off, Qualcomm could find itself in an especially strong position given its reach.
Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. He's been covering the tech industry since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @DanielHowley.
For the latest earnings reports and analysis, earnings whispers and expectations, and company earnings news, click here.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
