With a whole host of new phones announced at MWC 2024, we’re now approaching the mid-generation range of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which to us means it’s time to start wondering what Qualcomm has in store for the next one generation planned.
Well, in one Video message to Snapdragon insiders on XThat’s exactly what CMO Don McGuire revealed – he confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will launch in October at the Snapdragon Summit.
What does Qualcomm promise with this new version? What about the rumors we’re hearing about Apple’s iPhone 16? These are some additional details we spoke about in person with McGuire at MWC.
What? NPU continues to develop!
❗️To all Snapdragon insiders… CMO @donnymac is in Europe this week for #MWC24 and has a special message – and some secret information – just for you 🕵 pic.twitter.com/RBsBvytRloFebruary 28, 2024
In the video, he talks about how the new chipset will feature the company’s Oryon CPU cores (found in the Snapdragon X Elite) – six of these high-performance cores in particular are rumored to be making an appearance. Additionally, McGuire mentions that the new silicon will be the “evolution of our NPU story,” suggesting an improved neural engine.
This lines up with much of what McGuire said in an exclusive interview with Tom’s Guide. In it, he goes into more detail about how Qualcomm is preparing for a future where AI is “suggestive, predictive and proactive” as models eventually become small and powerful enough to be stored locally on phones.
The first step there is of course the AI Hub, which Qualcomm announced during MWC. “We’ve onboarded 80 LLMs so far, and we continue to onboard more, optimized for Snapdragon platforms…then any developer can add AI to their app with just five lines of code,” McGuire commented.
It’s clear what the company is aiming for, and he sees the challenges clearly: the size of the models, the possibilities of possible cross-app model conflicts, and their impact on battery life. These are seen as “near-term challenges” for McGuire, and I can only imagine that an improved NPU in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will fit perfectly with these software integrations and help overcome these obstacles.
Apple vs. Qualcomm goes into the next round
The timing of the Snapdragon summit isn’t really a surprise, of course, and puts the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 squarely in the sights of the A18 Pro, which Apple will release with the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro.
It looks like this is going to be a big AI battle, as Apple CEO Tim Cook recently spoke about how the company will go about it “Breaking new ground in generative AI” this year after investing “significantly” in the technology.
While the Cupertino crew is unclear about what this will look like specifically, rumors suggest otherwise iOS 18 get some huge AI features including a transformed Siri – all powered by what we suspect is a turbocharged Neural Engine in the A18 Pro.
