Qualcomm launches Snapdragon 8 Elite: 'Smartphones faster than PCs', but there is threat of lawsuit with Arm

The GPU, an essential node in a world where Videogames are becoming more and more important and gaining space over Cinema and Music, shows impressive improvements with 44% improved power efficiency, 40% performance increase and 35% improvement in ray tracing capabilities.

But the real star of the Snapdragon 8 Elite platform is the Exagon NPU, the chip dedicated to handling Artificial Intelligence tasks. Thanks to a 45 per cent speed increase, 8 scalar accelerator cores and 6 vector accelerator cores, smartphones will now be able to run multi-mode artificial intelligence engines locally. In other words, smartphones will be able to converse with humans ChatGPT-style, examine audio, video and photos, and interact with sensors and creative stuff to respond to our requests. All without the need to connect to the cloud. The new version of Exagon is so powerful that it can delete subjects on the fly in the background of the video footage we are taking: be it people, objects or graphic elements. How long will it be before these devices are also able to replace faces and voices in real time in our videos, allowing anyone to create dangerous tools for misinformation or fraud? We don't know, but it doesn't look like much longer.

Snapdragon 8 Elite promises to transform not only the way we use smartphones, but also the very role of these devices, which could approach the performance of a desktop PC. The introduction of the new Oryon core could mark a momentous change for the mobile industry, putting Qualcomm at the centre of technological innovation.

With this new generation of processors, Qualcomm is no longer just looking at mobile competitors such as Mediatek or Apple, but is claiming a place in the high-end computing landscape, offering desktop performance in an uncompromising mobile format.

All this in the hope that Qualcomm and ARM will come to an agreement to avoid clashing in court. At the heart of the dispute are the miraculous Oryon CPUs that Qualcomm developed from the acquisition of the company Nuvia (which had a licensing agreement with ARM). The latter, sensing that one of its best customers was planning to start producing chips by detaching itself from its technologies, thus limiting the amount of royalties it would pay to it, never wanted to transfer the agreement from Nuvia to Qualcomm and is now threatening to terminate the licence agreements that allow Qualcomm to produce its processors.

Qualcomm issued only a note for comment saying, "This is a further threat from Arm, increasingly unfounded, aimed at intimidating a long-time partner, interfering with our performance-leading CPUs, and increasing royalty rates without regard to the broad rights under our architecture licence." He continues; "With a trial fast approaching in December, Arm's desperate manoeuvre appears to be an attempt to disrupt the legal process, and its request for termination is completely without merit. We are confident that Qualcomm's rights under the agreement with Arm will be upheld. Arm's anti-competitive conduct will not be tolerated'.