Qualcomm launches new chips for post-smartphone computing era
Original: Qualcomm wants to be the chip inside whatever replaces your smartphone, and it just announced two products toward that end
Why This Matters
Reflects chipmaker strategy shift toward wearable and AR devices as smartphone market matures, signaling long-term industry transition.
Qualcomm announced two new products on June 16, 2026: Snapdragon Reality Elite for mixed-reality glasses and START toolkit for AI wearables. CEO Cristiano Amon said the company is developing over 40 AI wearable devices, positioning Qualcomm for the next computing platform beyond smartphones.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon announced the company is actively developing over 40 different AI wearable devices, including jewelry, camera-equipped earbuds, pins, and watches. The company unveiled two new offerings to power this vision: Snapdragon Reality Elite platform for mixed-reality glasses and the Scalable Turnkey AI-Ready Toolkit (START), combining hardware modules and software stack for AI devices. The Snapdragon Reality Elite delivers significant performance improvements over its predecessor XR2+ Gen 2, including up to 60% GPU performance gain, up to 30% CPU improvement, and up to 160% NPU performance increase. The platform can run a 3-billion-parameter language model at 45 tokens per second, enabling responsive AI interactions. It supports 4.4K per-eye resolution at 90 fps, slightly improved from the previous 4.3K per-eye resolution, addressing concerns about motion sickness and eye strain from extended headset use. The chip will power two device types: stand-alone video-see-through headsets and lightweight tethered optical-see-through glasses. Early adopters include XREAL Project Aura and an upcoming device from Play for Dream. START consists of an AR chip, software platform, companion apps, and a white-label program for hardware makers. Three reference designs are offered: audio plus camera setup similar to Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, monocular display, and binocular display. Eyewear manufacturers Inspecs and O'Neill (owned by TitanFlex) are among the first white-label partners. Amon told CNBC that hardware startups building novel form factors will emerge as companies gather real-world data to power AI agents, with major implications for established smartphone players.