Qualcomm gambled on repeating its own ads at Computex, but did it pay off?
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As predicted, Qualcomm's Computex Keynote focused more on AI and AI-powered features on the Windows on Arm ecosystem rather than new announcements.
Qualcomm is turning 40 this year, but as CEO Cristiano Amon stated, "it's a new Qualcomm," thanks to the company's investment in computing. Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon X series at Computex last year, but despite that timeline, Qualcomm's Computex presence did not revolve around chip announcements.
Essentially: Qualcomm spent the entire 60 minute keynote dodging around the rumors of the second Snapdragon X Series chip generation to instead focus on their often-repeated performance claims, new systems, and Windows on Arm ecosystem updates.
At a rather slim Computex for computing news, this could have been a moment for Qualcomm to shine with the second gen of it's Arm chips. Instead the company chose to gamble and focus on its partnerships with various manufacturers including Microsoft.
But, did Qualcomm's gamble pay off?
Qualcomm now has 1,400 games optimized for Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite. The company showed footage of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II on a Snapdragon X Elite system, though its uncertain whether the game will play smoothly across all of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X series.
Qualcomm showcased a lot of early gaming performance on the Snapdragon X Elite chipset on custom hardware, running on 80W systems that were never released to the public. Considering that history, it's hard to take Qualcomm's announcements at face value.
Qualcomm and Epic Games will also be bringing Fortnite to Windows on Arm, which makes sense considering Qualcomm announced Snapdragon support for Epic Games Online Easy Anti-Cheat back in March.
Qualcomm has reached 9% market share in the laptop market, thanks to a large portfolio of devices, including newly launched computes like the new Acer Aspire 14 and 16 AI, HP OmniBook 5, and new Microsoft Surface Pro 11-inch and Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch.
Amon also shared statistics on Snapdragon's performance compared to Intel's Core Ultra 7 processor. But this is a skewed comparison from the jump. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite is a 12-core chipset while the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V is a mid-range 8-core CPU. And some of the comparisons were calculated on specific workloads like DaVinci Resolve's SuperScale FHD to 4K upscaling technology.
Amon also repeated the claim that Snapdragon has "leading performance on an SoC in the laptop ecosystem." While this was true during the Snapdragon X Elite launch cycle, it has been overturned by recent launches from AMD, Apple, and Intel.
Qualcomm has also expanded its portfolio of applications to include the top 200 most-used Windows apps into the Windows on Arm ecosystem. Part of this is thanks to Microsoft's new Prism emulation software which helps alleviate the key pain-point of Windows on Arm.
However, there are still limits to Prism emulation and the Windows on Arm ecosystem. After all, what are those 200 applications? And are they actually the most-used apps?
Qualcomm makes this claim based on data from Microsoft that was collected by snapshots of aggregated app usage data as of August 2024 on Copilot+ PCs. Of course, the problem with that data is that in August 2024, only Snapdragon X systems were in the Copilot+ ecosystem. AMD and Intel's AI PC chips didn't get rolled into Copilot+ until the end of 2024.
So it's a bit of a skewed sample set.
As always with Qualcomm's claims, Amon's claims are technically correct, but the real context is always in the details Qualcomm doesn't share.
That said, Qualcomm has put in some serious work to fill out the Windows on Arm ecosystem. Just over a year ago, the Windows on Arm software ecosystem was almost unusably bare. That is no longer the case.
But if you need a highly specialized application, it may not run on Windows on Arm, even emulated. Some key examples are the Autodesk suite, Parsec, and Adobe DreamWeaver and Substance 3DStager.
In fact, despite Qualcomm's partnership with Adobe, the only applications that run natively on Snapdragon are Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom. Other applications like Illustrator and After Effects are expected to make it onto Snapdragon platforms, but are still not available through emulation yet.
Qualcomm deserves recognition for the work done to build up an ecosystem. But it will still be years before Windows on Arm can even come close to the level of app-support you find on x86 systems.
Cristiano took questions during the keynote from audience submissions and had them spoken aloud by a Snapdragon AI PC. So these questions ranged from AI for business to a hybrid future that combines computing, AI, automotive, and mobile ecosystems.
Because these questions were collected from the whole keynote audience including Qualcomm staff, guests, OEM partners, and Computex industry attendees, many fed straight into Qualcomm's usual marketing stance about Snapdragon X Series performance and Qualcomm's view of a hybrid future.
The most interesting statement from Amon during this segment was "I'm very bullish about smart glasses" and the future of AR and how it will evolve with AI PCs and better smartphones to augment our lives.
Amon also took questions from press and analysts after the keynote to expand on Qualcomm's portfolio from data center to DragonWing to robotics. 'Robotics is natural to Qualcomm,' Amon said. Claiming robotics will be a big market for Qualcomm similar to the automotive market. As robots require a high degree of performance and strong battery life, and 'that's our DNA.'
As for the future of the Oryon CPU cores behind the Snapdragon X Series processors, Amon would only enthuse 'the CPU team is very busy,' and that those interested in the future of Qualcomm's computing portfolio should 'come to Snapdragon Summit, you're going to like what you're going to see.'
Qualcomm sees the future of computing as a hybrid environment between computers and smartphones, where one is an extension of the other. This view of the future colors everything Amon and Qualcomm's OEM partners discussed at Computex.
However, is it an accurate view of the future? You can already access your smartphone data on your laptop in the Windows and macOS ecosystems. While there are differences in functionality, with some combinations working better than others. But phone to computer communication has been in the works for years now.
In fact, I distinctly remember crashing my 2010 MacBook Pro by adding macOS X Mavericks on it to control my iPhone from my laptop back in 2013.
While Amon is also bullish about on-device AI features with Snapdragon, Apple, AMD, Nvidia, and Intel are also pushing the same development. So it's hardly a unique feature to Snapdragon systems.
To support this dream, Qualcomm is entering the commercial and data center spaces in the future.
As for the highly anticipated Snapdragon X Elite Gen 2, it seems Qualcomm is holding all details on that chip for Snapdragon Summit in the fall.
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