In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the ecosystem as a whole, I’m joined by my colleague and fellow analyst, Olivier Blanchard, for a look at the top 5G developments and what’s going on that caught our eye. This week, an assessment of 5G innovation and new offerings from the Snapdragon Summit, including Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon X Elite and Motorola showcasing adaptive display technology.
Our conversation focused on:
Qualcomm Unleashes Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. At Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm announced its latest premium mobile platform, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3—which we see as an innovative breakthrough of on-device intelligence, premium-tier performance, and power efficiency. As the premium Android smartphone SoC leader, Qualcomm Technologies’ latest processor will be adopted for flagship devices by global OEMs and smartphone brands including ASUS, Honor, NIO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. We review the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and its role as Qualcomm’s first mobile platform meticulously designed with generative AI in mind and why we view it as delivering impressive AI, chart-topping camera capabilities, console-defying gaming, studio-quality audio, all backed by ultra-fast connectivity, to power the experiences consumers want.
Qualcomm Debuts Snapdragon X Elite. Qualcomm debuted the Snapdragon X Elite platform aimed at ushering in a new era of premium computing by delivering a massive leap forward in CPU performance, on-device AI inferencing, and one of the most efficient processors in a PC with up to multiple days of battery life. We assess how AI is transforming the way we interact with our PCs, providing the design foundation for Snapdragon X Elite to support the intelligent and power-intensive tasks of the future that can enable improved productivity and immersive entertainment experiences from anywhere.
Motorola Transforming Adaptive Display Devices. At Lenovo Tech World 2023, Motorola sets out to redefine what is possible with AI and adaptive display devices. Motorola unveiled an adaptive display concept that is developed to mold to its consumer needs by pushing boundaries and investing in flexible display technology and devices. We review the new conceptual device using a FHD+ pOLED display that can be bent and shaped into different forms depending on users’ needs. This adaptive display concept further builds upon the display and mechanical innovations from Mototola’s foldable and rollable devices in both the smartphone and PC categories. Plus, we appraise the MotoAI concept as an approach to the latest trend in AI with large language models (LLMs), enabling users to engage with their personal MotoAI assistant to answer questions, draft messages, and schedule tasks as well as process data and run tasks locally on-device, which offers users enhanced data privacy.
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Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Transcript:
Ron Westfall: Hello and welcome everyone to The 5G Factor. I’m Ron Westfall, Research Director here at The Futurum Group. And I’m joined here today by my distinguished colleague, Olivier Blanchard, our Research Director focused on key areas such as devices and PCs. And today we will be honing in on the major 5G ecosystem developments that have caught our eye, and it certainly includes devices and PCs this week. So Olivier, welcome back to The 5G Factor, and many thanks for joining today. How have you been bearing up between our episodes?
Olivier Blanchard: It’s been busy. It’s a busy time of year for those of us who follow technology and earnings and innovation in the semiconductor space.
Ron Westfall: Oh well, you couldn’t set it up better for me in terms of segueing to jumping right in, and let’s get to it. You’re right, it’s been very busy. And one certainly important event is the Snapdragon Summit held Maui every year by Qualcomm. And at the event we saw Qualcomm announce its latest premium mobile platform, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. And we see this really as an innovative breakthrough of on-device intelligence, premium tier performance and power efficiency. As the premium Android smartphone SoC leader, Qualcomm’s latest processors can be adopted for flagship devices by global OEMs and smartphone brands such as ASUS, Honor, NIO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, Realme, Redmi, RedMagic, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. How’s that for an impressive array of OEMs? So Olivier-
Olivier Blanchard: You mentioned Samsung, right?
Ron Westfall: Exactly. Again, it’s a sampling list. And so Olivier, what impressed you most about the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 unveiling?
Olivier Blanchard: So every year around this time, although it keeps getting earlier, it used to be the first week of December, then it was November, and now it’s in October. So I don’t know if it’s because Qualcomm’s product design cycle is shortening or if they’re trying to beat some of their competitors to the press because MediaTek is announcing their version of their premium mobile SoC in the next week or two. So what impressed me the most is every year, Qualcomm comes out with the benchmark, like the high bar for features and performance for the premium flagship mobile system-on-chip, SoC, and every year they impress. They always come out with really good stuff and it’s not just iterative, like 20% better than last year. It’s less vague than, “The fastest and best that we’ve ever built,” quote, unquote, as some high-end mobile OEMs like to tout their new products.
It’s foundationally different from what we’ve seen until now. So first of all, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, is a little bit of a mouthful. It’s not B2C, right? It’s B2B, so they’re talking to OEMs. So it’s nice to have good clean nomenclature that just helps OEMs realize where in the sequence of a product’s evolution a product is. However, I wish they would just find cooler names for their iterations of Snapdragon mobile platforms so we wouldn’t have to think about numbers and words at the same time. It’s very AI-focused this year. So I noticed a few years ago that Qualcomm, and I think I was probably one of the first analysts to actually voice this, that Qualcomm wasn’t just a chip company, they were an AI company. And at the time it seemed a little wonky to say that. People were just sort of side-eyeing me a little bit.
And it was really mostly based on the types of processes that Snapdragon Mobile could already do on chip, on the device. And one of the ones that impressed me the most was a demo they did, I think in partnership with Google where two people were having a phone call live, one was speaking in Chinese, the other one was speaking English, translation was simultaneous. And it wasn’t passing through the cloud, it was actually done on chip. And I thought, “Wow, this is like Star Trek stuff. We’re here. What else type of AI processes and features could be put on chip?” And what Qualcomm came out with this year with the 8 Gen 2 is sort of mind-blowing. The amount of on-chip AI processing power at speed that is available just for a device in this form factor that fits in your pocket is kind of astounding. It runs LLMs on device.
So I guess to summarize, because sorry, I just went off on a tangent, I’m excited about this, there are two aspects to AI on chip, which is I think the main theme of this year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Which is also the main theme of where premium mobile SoCs are going or where they need to be is you have back of the house AI, what I call back of the house AI, which is the stuff, the processes that control your camera intelligence, that control power efficiency, that control beam forming and how efficient your phone modem-RF system is at communicating with 5G towers.
So it’s all this stuff that we don’t necessarily as users think about, that we don’t see. They’re just processes in the background that are very AI-focused, that are managed by AI, and that make the camera’s features just much more efficient and work better. Then there’s front of the house AI, which is the stuff that we as users actually experience directly. So that can be an assistant, like a Google Assistant or Siri. Basically, you talk to the phone, the phone talks back or it does things for you. And the LLM element of this, the generative AI, being able to create images out of nothing using certain apps that were originally meant to be cloud-based apps, actually happening on device is, I don’t know. It’s much more of a game changer I think, than the tech press makes it out to be.
I don’t know if I’m alone here, I’m just really impressed with that kind of AI capability already being on phones. I wasn’t really expecting to see this happen probably for another two or three years, but we’re here, and it’s game on for everybody else. I’m sure that MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300, I think is the name of the next one, will have some pretty impressive AI features, but I’m just blown away by this. It’s basically like Qualcomm this week was basically like, “Okay, come get us.”
Ron Westfall: Right on. And I think your enthusiasm is fully warranted, Olivier. First of all, I commend you on calling out Qualcomm as being an AI player before it was trendy to do so. So that certainly justifies a victory lap on your part. And yes, I fully agree that when it comes to AI capabilities on the smartphone, this is an impressive array of breakthroughs, quite simply. I mean, this is something that does have I think profound implications for the entire mobile ecosystem, but also the AI ecosystem. Clearly the two are meeting, and I think we understand some of the key reasons why.
First of all, when it comes to actually scaling AI, it has to be done at the device level, at the edge, quite simply. And that is we have really a hybrid AI future today and certainly into the foreseeable future with more and more of the processing done on devices and at the edge to simply be able to assure that it can actually meet the demands that are out there, especially on the inferencing side and complement the cloud’s capabilities. But we know, with certainty, that all of it cannot be done on the cloud. It requires these capabilities that you’ve highlighted, Olivier. And this is the smartphone aspect, and so I think it was very smart to start on that.
Now let’s turn to the PCs, which clearly are complementary to the on-device capabilities that we’re seeing on the smartphones. And I think what is important here is that the Snapdragon X Elite is clearly a product that is designed to meet the emerging needs here on the PC side. And so I think what’s important to note is that the platform is designed to usher in basically a new era of premium computing by really delivering new CPU performance breakthroughs. So this is again, mixing up the competitive terrain out there. Certainly Intel for example, comes to mind in this regard, but also to really take that AI inferencing on device and quite simply making all the more efficient on the PC and aligning that with really multiple days of battery life. And I think we would all welcome that.
And so as we see AI evolving and how we interact with the PCs and other devices, on the PC side, I anticipate that Snapdragon X Elite can support the intelligent and power-intensive tasks that are quite simply going to be mandatory, and as a result, just improve overall experiences. And that includes, for example, immersive entertainment basically from anywhere that a person is. And I’ll stop there. I don’t want to take too much of the thunder, but Olivier, what are your first impressions of Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite?
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah, it’s impressive. So it’s kind of an interesting thing. I’ve been watching Qualcomm try to break into the enterprise PC market, really in the PC market overall and with mixed results. They have a really good product, they’ve had good PC SoCs, they just haven’t really taken off. It was a little bit soon for Windows on ARM, x86 obviously is very entrenched. But through their perseverance and especially their development of their new 12-core Orion CPU, which is I think going to be a bigger story in the next couple of years, it’s a revolutionary CPU. It’s ARM-based honestly, but it’s custom. They’ve built it themselves. I think we’re going to see that CPU pop up across their entire product ecosystem, not just PCs. I think it’ll end up in their phones as well and probably their XR products.
But I think for the first time, Qualcomm has a product that I think is ready to compete against Intel’s x86 platform at the enterprise level and also against Apple’s silicon as well. It’s really powerful. So it’s a 4-nanometer technology system-on-chip architecture, 12 cores. It has an integrated Hexagon NPU, which is a neural processing unit. It has this thing called dual-core boost, which accelerates the AI processes. It’s like four and a half times faster I think for a lot of AI processes than some of the competitors. And just like the mobile discussion that we just had a minute ago, it can run generative AI models with over 13 billion parameters in just a matter of seconds.
So I think what I’m really seeing here is an opportunity for Qualcomm to break into the market with an answer to the still powerful but aging x86 platform, to go head-to-head against Apple and it’s very successful and very power efficient ARM-based silicon. And give, I think, IT DMs, or IT decision-makers in the enterprise, a real choice in the coming years, whether to continue with x86 or to diversify a little bit and get these machines that essentially can have longer battery life, that have much user-friendlier thermal envelopes that can process a lot of really powerful AI processes right on the device. And also, because it’s Qualcomm, happen to have 5G connectivity built in.
So you have the best connectivity, the longest battery life, exceptional performance from the CPU and the GPU. And to me, it feels like what laptops have always meant to be, which is complete freedom, being able to work from anywhere, not being tethered to a power outlet because your battery doesn’t last long, not being tethered to a Wi-Fi network because you can just basically hook up to a 5G or an LTE network. And being able to have all of your processes, especially very expensive processes on device without needing to connect to the cloud.
So I think it’s a really compelling product. And if nothing else, Qualcomm’s secret sauce in terms of business development and market penetration is their ability to work with partners. Their partner ecosystem in mobile is second to none. Their partner ecosystem in automotive is also second to none, and it’s much newer than the PC ecosystem that it can build around its existing partnerships.
So I think now that they have this product, Qualcomm are going to be able to go to partners that were maybe a little bit more x86-centric and say, “Look, at least try this. Test the markets. Diversify a little bit. If there is a demand for Windows on ARM PCs for the enterprise, we have the solution.” And it’s much more mature and ready than previous incarnations of this before the Orion CPU. And so I think Intel definitely has a challenge on its hands in the next few years, and Apple also has a challenge on its hands in the next few years. And so we’ll see how the market share games shake out in the next four to five years.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, I agree completely. This is definitely introducing, I think, a more significant competitive dynamic, certainly in the PC segment. And I think you hit all the key points there, Olivier, in terms of the competitive mix heating up. We touched on Intel’s new processor that’s aimed at the AI PC market segment, so there won’t be any standing still. And yes, AI is introducing a new competitive dimension that we believe that Qualcomm can take advantage of to really potentially make those inroads that are conceivably around the corner. So this is exciting. I mean, this is big news. And yes, it’s about the execution, it’s about parlaying the expertise they have on the mobile device side further in the PC side and other devices and so forth. And so yes, it’s now becoming more of ARM-based CPUs and also GPUs and NPUs. You get the idea things are becoming a lot more interesting and this is something that could be this time is different in terms of Qualcomm’s prospects. I agree with that.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah, I think so. And another advantage too, I think is as we look at … I also cover ESG and sustainability efforts for companies. I see this, not just the utility for the user of having longer battery life and more efficient processes and more efficient SoCs at the mobile level, but also at the PC level. Obviously there are advantages for the user, right? Longer battery life, computer doesn’t heat up, it performs better, runs cooler. But at scale for an enterprise, if you’re an IT decision-maker, you’re buying laptops and PCs and other devices and you also have … You’re responsible for ESG goals. You’re meeting certain targets of sustainability.
And I think that there’s also a big story in terms of how more power-efficient processes and power efficient devices can help IT departments and the enterprise overall achieve those sustainability targets. I don’t know that we talk about this enough. It seems to be a secondary consideration. But I think as time goes on, this becomes a much more important discussion or at least a factor in purchasing decisions. And so there again, ARM-based Windows PCs, especially for the enterprise, can have a huge impact sustainability wise, not just on the ESG targets, but also overall, they’re good for the environment. They’re better for the environment than older computers, I should say.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, no, that’s a critical point. And yes, I think we’re seeing that there is more consideration of sustainability capabilities in terms of implementing new technology. For example, when it comes to the telcos, 85% of them identify sustainability as a top most priority. So it doesn’t get any more clear than that. And to your point, Olivier, it’s aligning with the hybrid workforce. So clearly organizations out there, I’m seeing that they have to account more for having connected employees that are secure. And so this is where this is coming into play. You definitely want to have AI PCs or 5G connected laptops and so forth that deliver that security because alignment with all this is the fact that the cybersecurity threat is all the more challenging. And so these are ways to really meet that challenge in a cost-effective way on the one hand, but certainly also in advancing those very important sustainability goals.
And I think, yes, definitely the announcements coming out of Snapdragon Summit are momentous. And there are also other announcements that have been coming out this week that are equally momentous, at least in my view. For example, we had Lenovo Tech World 2024 where Motorola naturally was part of the announcement mix that came out of that event. And I think what’s important here is that Motorola is coming out with technology that again, is leveraging AI, that is making sure that Motorola is taking advantage of the on-device capabilities that we just went into detail in terms of the devices that Qualcomm is working with on the OEM side, and Motorola clearly is a well-known smartphone brand.
And so Olivier, from your perspective, what is it about the Motorola announcements that impressed you the most, particularly when it came to the AI side?
Olivier Blanchard: On the AI side, I was so deep in the Snapdragon that it didn’t really register so much as just being kind of, “Okay, we’re here. Motorola validates this AI forward movement.” I mean, that’s-
Ron Westfall: AI for all.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah. And I like the fact that … Let’s circle back to that. The thing that impressed me the most to be completely honest, is foldable phones. Just the ability to not just have a folding screen that folds flat on itself, but to have a phone that can actually be molded into different shapes. And to be fair, I think that the bracelets wearing use case for the phone, I’m not convinced. I think that’s probably a really easy way to just drop your phone and break it. However, the use case in which you essentially bend the bottom part of your phone, the bottom third to essentially make it into its own kickstand. So you can either watch content or be on a call or just have a second screen without needing to prop it up against something I thought was a fascinating, fascinating innovation.
If nothing else, just the ability to have a phone that molds to different shapes so that when I sit on my phone, it doesn’t crack or break or get damaged. To me, I thought that was the most compelling innovation from Moto’s events. The AI stuff, I don’t know, I’m spoiled with Snapdragon. So unfortunately I might not be the best person to comment on that because to me, it’s just like, “Okay, we’re doing AI-forward stuff in phones. We’re there.”
Ron Westfall: Well, fair enough. And I did have the opportunity to join the Lenovo team at its global industry analyst conference in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina area last week. So I can perhaps share a bit more insight on what Motorola is doing in terms of using AI technology to, quite simply, augment its offering. And yeah, I agree completely about the adaptive display and the foldable properties being something that some users out there will appreciate, but is not necessarily going to be for everybody, but at least I think it’s a compelling option.
And also I think it’s reinforcing that Motorola as well as Lenovo, naturally, are recognizing the importance of personalization, and that certainly is where AI can play a key role. And that includes the device customization you touched on. And so that’s always going to be important, but also, naturally, using the generative AI models to again, run the inferencing workloads locally and thus assure more privacy safeguards and, quite simply, more efficient distribution of the AI workloads and so forth. And I think what’s interesting is that it can basically produce a variety of unique AI-generated images that reflect the style of that individual user, and that can then be parlayed into say a custom wallpaper and so forth. And so these are things that can actually have a lot of traction, especially amongst younger users, for example.
Plus there are some common sense capabilities I think folks will appreciate, Motorola’s AI text summarization in basically taking long form conversations or whatever, and then basically distilling them to more simple messages that can be more easily digested and communicated. And I think what’s also interesting is that to your point about Motorola’s AI approach, they are basically branding it Moto AI, and it’s basically working with, again, those large language models. And I think what’s interesting here is that it’s allowing the users to take that on-device knowledge and aligning it more fully with the user’s preferences, patterns and so forth, and thus sinking into that whole idea of that, for Lenovo, AI should be for all.
And that certainly includes Motorola smartphones and devices that are taking advantage of Lenovo’s extensive investment in AI generally. For example, they’ve committed another billion dollars to investing in their AI R&D over the next three years on top of the investments they have already prioritized.
So this is all, I think, pointing to that this is the year of AI, but now we can anticipate very likely it’ll be potentially the decade of AI given just the moves that we’re seeing out of Motorola, Lenovo, and naturally the Snapdragon Summit being spearheaded by Qualcomm.
Olivier Blanchard: I think it’s interesting that we’re having the discussion. On the one hand, you have Qualcomm with the Snapdragon platform, which enables OEMs to build features and experiences on their phones. And then we’re having a conversation about Motorola, which is technically an OEM, and this implementation of those features. And so it is interesting to have this two-tiered … We have two chains or two links in the chain here, and there’s always a gap. And I have to remind people sometimes that just because a phone uses a particular chip set or system-on-chip, doesn’t mean that all of its features are going to be enabled or implemented by the OEM.
So we’ve seen in the past, just to keep the discussion about Snapdragon, I’ve seen Snapdragon chip sets show up in phones, and the phones don’t necessarily reflect all of the capabilities of the chip because not all of the features have been implemented. But where things are interesting, especially in the Android space, is that a company like Motorola can look at these capabilities, basically look at these platforms, build a phone around it and decide, not only which features they’re going to implement, but also how they’re going to implement them and create completely different, unique, brand-specific experiences based on them.
And so you have market differentiation at the OEM level on how they implement and how they skim those features and how they basically just make them their own for their own market. And I think that’s what’s really interesting about this ecosystem is just whereas with the Apple ecosystem, you have a stack, right? Apple makes the silicon, designs the silicon specifically for the features that they want to implement in the phones that they make. And so that’s it, there’s no deviation. With Android, you have platforms like Snapdragon, like Dimensity that creates essentially the field, the possibilities, and then the OEMs get on top of that and personalize those and customize their experiences and their devices based on those capabilities.
And so it’s fun to see that Motorola is innovating. I love that they’re developing their own assistant. I love that they’re focusing on this text summarization use case for AI. It definitely speaks to who at least a segment of their audience is, and why they would need to use that feature. So there’s definitely a professional crowd there. But I love that Motorola is kind of fun. They do fun things with the physical designs, with the touchpoints, with the actual interface that other companies that focus on performance and being sexy and sleek and having the best camera or the best sound or the best design don’t necessarily focus on. And I love that variety in the mobile industry of form factors that appear to be the same, but then when you get your hands on them, they operate completely differently, they feel different, and they’re going to give you a completely different experience for your money.
Ron Westfall: Oh, that is so true. And I think we will definitely be revisiting this variance across the various smartphones, and that’s just the smartphones. I mean, you hit the nail on the head, Olivier. Certainly when it comes to the premium tier, yeah, we anticipate more and they have to deliver, but also there’s the mid-tier and the more cost-effective tier. And so that’s built in, that’s understood, but even within those tiers, you’re right, I think there is a fair amount of variation that keeps us busy.
Olivier Blanchard: And those trickle down, right?
Ron Westfall: Yeah, exactly.
Olivier Blanchard: So this year’s premium features two, three years from now, they’ll be the mid-tier features.
Ron Westfall: Right on.
Olivier Blanchard: So yeah, if you can’t afford the premium phone next year, don’t worry about it. Two, three years later, all the features that are hot right now will be standard in mid-tier phones.
Ron Westfall: Right on. I agree wholeheartedly. And so I think that is an insightful, positive note to wrap up on, something to definitely look forward to in our next conversation that’s focused on certainly the smartphone device side of things, let alone PCs. And so once again, thank you, Olivier, for joining The 5G Factor today.
Olivier Blanchard: Thanks for having me.
Ron Westfall: No problem. It’s a no-brainer. And again, I’d like to certainly thank the audience out there for tuning in and joining our webcast. Naturally, please look at subscribing or getting onto the webcast at The Futurum Group website. And that I think will be certainly a great way to spend the weekend as we look at these hot topics and developments, certainly for folks who appreciate the 5G ecosystem. And so with that, a great day everyone and have a wonderful 5G several days.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Brings Generative AI to Smartphones
Lenovo Tech World 2023: Advancing AI for All Vision
Qualcomm Raises Bar for On-Device Generative AI at Snapdragon Summit
Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
Olivier Blanchard has extensive experience managing product innovation, technology adoption, digital integration, and change management for industry leaders in the B2B, B2C, B2G sectors, and the IT channel. His passion is helping decision-makers and their organizations understand the many risks and opportunities of technology-driven disruption, and leverage innovation to build stronger, better, more competitive companies. Read Full Bio.
