Qualcomm Demonstrates New Processor For AI-Based Smart Glasses

Qualcomm Inc., the top maker of smartphone processors, is making a bigger push into smart glasses with low-power components that can run artificial intelligence software.

The chipmaker demonstrated a pair of glasses at the Augmented World Expo trade show that rely on its new Snapdragon AR1+ Gen 1 processor. The idea is to let glasses run AI without having to be connected to the internet or rely on a phone.

Qualcomm Senior Vice President Ziad Asghar said he was able to chat with a fully functional AI assistant — based on the Llama 1B model — run by the company’s chips contained in the glasses. “No phone. No cloud. Just the processor powering the glasses themselves,” he said in a blog post Tuesday timed to the event in Long Beach, California. 

The San Diego-based company has developed smaller, energy-efficient components that it hopes will elevate smart glasses beyond their current status as phone accessories. The products will become fully independent devices that can can do the heavy lifting of running software and talking to the internet themselves, Qualcomm said.

The company, whose chips already power devices such as Meta Platforms Inc.’s Ray-Ban glasses and Quest headsets, is looking to make the smart glasses category more mainstream. Up until now, the technology has been hampered by requiring power-hungry chips and enough batteries to run them.

Qualcomm is looking to supply the components for all types of headsets — from virtual reality goggles to smart glasses that are indistinguishable from ordinary spectacles. In addition to working with Meta, it provides chips for Lenovo Group Ltd.’s A3, Sony Corp.’s Spacial HMD, Microsoft Corp.’s HoloLens 2 and HTC Corp.’s Vive Flow.

Apple Inc. has been sizing up the smart glasses category as well. So far, the company just sells a Vision Pro headset that is more cumbersome and hasn’t been a commercial success. The iPhone maker also offers ARKit, a way to make augmented reality apps for iPhones and other devices. The Vision Pro runs its own visionOS operating system.

Qualcomm, which has been both an Apple partner and adversary over the years, is looking to help boost the category before that company potentially shakes up the market.