Qualcomm has introduced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, two flagship smartphone processors designed to run more AI tasks directly on devices. The chips add new hardware for personal AI agents, local voice processing, camera controls and AI-assisted audio while reducing reliance on cloud computing.
According to Qualcomm’s official announcement, both processors use a 2-nanometer manufacturing process and include its Oryon CPU, Adreno GPU and Hexagon NPU. The Extreme model sits at the top of the new lineup with additional performance for AI, imaging and other demanding workloads.
New Hardware Supports More Capable On-Device AI
The chips include updated sensing hubs capable of running small AI models with up to 200 million parameters. Qualcomm says this allows phones to operate features such as a personal scribe locally, distinguish between different speakers and build memory from a user’s activity to suggest automated tasks.
The hardware can also support a complete voice-in, voice-out AI agent running on the device. A new accelerator in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 is designed to process models more efficiently.
The Extreme model can locally run a mixture-of-experts model containing 30 billion parameters. An MoE model activates only part of its total parameter count for each task, reducing the computing resources required compared with using the entire model at once.
For comparison, Apple introduced a 20-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model during WWDC in June as part of its third generation of foundation models.
Qualcomm Adds New Camera and Audio Features
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series also adds pixel-level camera controls, improved stabilization and better motion processing. The Extreme model supports 8K video recording at 60 frames per second and 4K recording at 240 fps, along with Qualcomm’s Advanced Professional Video codec for higher-end video production.
Both processors use AI to isolate vocals and reduce background noise. Qualcomm’s Voice Bubble technology is designed to distinguish a user’s voice from surrounding sounds during calls and other audio tasks.
Motorola also announced that its upcoming Motorola Signature 27 will use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, with availability planned for later this year. Qualcomm says devices using the new processors are also expected from brands including Honor, OnePlus, Oppo, Redmi, RedMagic, Vivo and Xiaomi.
Qualcomm has been developing more than 40 AI-focused devices across different form factors, but smartphones remain a major part of its plans for running personal AI locally. The new processors are intended to give phone makers more computing capacity for those workloads without requiring a separate AI device.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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