Low-power wireless AI processors from Qualcomm help fulfill promise of AI Everywhere
By now, you’ve no doubt heard the term AI Everywhere. It’s, like, everywhere.
AI Everywhere is the tech industry’s vision for the mad proliferation of generative AI and other ML and deep learning capabilities, and what it all might make possible. Projections for the economic impact of AI vary widely, but most expect the market to bound past $1 trillion before the end of the decade.
But for all the heady proclamations, AI Everywhere simply isn’t. Not yet.
Indeed, the industry won’t realize the true potential until AI truly is everywhere. That is, until AI extends far beyond smartphones, laptops and the datacenter into fields and streams, street corners and factories — even ballparks and living rooms.
At Embedded World in Nuremburg, Germany, this week, Qualcomm unleashed platforms to help extend the reach of the AI Everywhere vision on two fronts: untethered, low-power intelligence for remote applications and a higher-performance IoT platform for everything from robots and drones to factory floor automation.
Micro-Power Wi-FI
Probably the most disruptive innovation in the suite of announcements is the “micro-power” Wi-Fi featured in the new Qualcomm QCC730 SoC. The dual-band Wi-Fi is as much as 88 percent lower power than previous generations, which frees developers to extend battery-powered connectivity.
The QCC730 is available now.
“This new offering places Qualcomm Technologies at the center of next-generation battery-powered smart-home, healthcare, gaming and other consumer electronics devices,” Rahul Patel, group general manager of connectivity, broadband and networking at Qualcomm Technologies Inc., said in a statement.
Beefier Platform
The wireless industry pioneer also unveiled the beefier Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 platform, which features an eight-core processor with built-in Adreno 640-series graphics and the 6GHz extension of Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E. All told, the RB3 Gen 2 packs a 10x boost in AI performance with enough video chops to support multiple concurrent cameras. The RB3 Gen 2 is now available in two development kits for pre-order.
Both the QCC730 and the RB3 Gen 2 boast a broad suite of tools as well as growing ecosystems to help businesses solve problems in areas that simply were out of reach just a few years ago. The QCC730 is supported by open-source IDE tools as well as an open-source SDK. As well, the new Qualcomm AI Hub, which maintains a library of optimized AI models for myriad applications, includes support for the RB3 Gen 2.
More than 35 IoT ecosystem partners were on hand at Embedded World to showcase the new platforms, or demonstrating services and tools to support application development.
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