16 Jul 2026
|
Mike Boland
AWE Talks: Unlocking Personal AI
Welcome back to AWE Talks, our series that revisits the best AWE conference sessions. With AWE USA recently concluded, there's a fresh batch of stage footage to keep us occupied for weeks.
We continue this latest season of AWE Talks with a heavy hitter. Qualcomm flexes its XR muscle with a demonstration of its vision for integrated AI wearables, XR glasses, and some new product announcements.
See the summarized takeaways below, along with the full session video. Stay tuned for more video highlights each week and check out the full library of conference sessions on AWE’s YouTube Channel.
Speakers
Ziad Asghar: SVP & GM of XR, Qualcomm
Key Takeaways & Analysis
- Qualcomm powers almost every major XR headset with its purpose-built chipsets.
- But its vision for the XR ecosystem goes far beyond just headworn formats.
- A constellation of wearable devices will truly unlock what it calls personal AI.
- XR is a key piece of that vision, as eye-level perspective is critical for physical AI.
- To that end, Qualcomm continues to develop XR chips for an expanding device spectrum.
- This includes its AR1 chip that powers smart glasses with on-device AI.
- But the latest is the Reality Elite chip, announced at AWE to power mixed reality.
- This is the spiritual successor to XR2 Gen 2, which powers Samsung Galaxy XR.
- Reality Elite uplevels capability across the board, such as CPU, GPU, and NPU specs.
- This gives XR developers more horsepower to push experiential limits.
- Elsewhere in the Spatial Spectrum is the new Snapdragon START program.
- This is a toolkit for non-tech eyewear brands to accelerate their entrance into smart glasses.
- This handles technical heavy lifting while fashion brands can focus on what they do best.
- Given the market demand validated by Meta and Ray-Ban, START should be popular.
- Altogether, Qualcomm is blitzing the XR market and its widening set of opportune endpoints.
For more color and depth, see the full session below...
Want more XR insights and multimedia? ARtillery Intelligence offers an indexed and searchable library of XR intelligence known as ARtillery Pro. See more here.
