We had the opportunity to attend an event hosted by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc in Kuala Lumpur to talk about what Qualcomm is up to – and most importantly, their advancements in other parts of the tech world apart from smartphones only.
Qualcomm is indeed at the forefront of interconnected intelligence which they are calling it the Connected Intelligent Edge. From the name alone, it is technically building AI capabilities in edge devices that we have in our desks and pockets.
There are a lot of advantages to doing it in this approach rather than relying on a central server to handle all of the computation – for example:
- All edge devices can be connected to the internet – and by extension to each other – via cellular services like 5G networks. However, since all the AI data is done on the devices, it can be processed and analyzed in real-time and thus can give us the result faster.
- Having devices like our smartwatches able to do real-time processes and analysis, the device can essentially help us track our vital signs, such as blood pressure and heart rate, and send the information to healthcare providers as quickly as possible. We already see this happening in certain products – and it’s a promising future with a lot more potential to save lives.
- Having them in cars can also monitor the car’s performance and also the driver’s status. In short, it’s the usual accident prevention, fuel efficiency improvement, cost reduction, and ultimately – saving the environment. However, if all devices are interconnected, it can reduce traffic congestion too. Probably with self-driving cars and not human-driver cars though.
There was one use case that we were told by Qualcomm that I find to be really interesting. Since many cities already have surveillance cameras deployed on a large scale, upgrading each and every camera will be a problem. So, the most exciting solution is to connect each camera to an AI Box to “smartify” all the cameras together.
In a way, this AI Box approach transforms the video management service into a Video Software as a Service (VSaaS) implementation.
Since Qualcomm also mentioned laptops, we asked them about that too. Qualcomm is definitely aware of the general consensus regarding Windows on Snapdragon – and in extension Arm – and they did let us know that there is indeed R&D that is always ongoing.
Interestingly, the focus of Windows on Snapdragon is not on backward compatibility via translation from x86 to ARM, but on developing a new use case. Since it is equipped with Snapdragon, it will come with Qualcomm’s modem too. Since these laptops can be connected all the time, these Windows on Snapdragon laptops can be always-online and will be focused on new apps made for ARM instead.
It’s an interesting approach but that also will kind of mean that Windows on Snapdragon will only share the name and interface of Windows, but app usage will be different. It makes sense since the entire library of Windows apps is so vast, supporting all those old apps efficiently is daunting and could be impossible to do.
Still, this was an insightful session with Qualcomm – looking forward to discussing more some in-depth topics in the future.
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