Meta and Qualcomm's new venture: Revolutionizing smartphones with AI
Meta and Qualcomm are planning a joint project that could change the power dynamics in the mobile phone market, with artificial intelligence playing a crucial role in this collaboration.
23 April 2024 08:36
Mark Zuckerberg's ventures into the mobile device sector have largely been disappointing. His company previously attempted to partner with phone manufacturers to include a special button on devices that would activate Facebook, but this strategy failed to have a lasting impact.
The HTC First smartphone and its Facebook Home interface, built on the Android system, also failed.
Despite these setbacks, Meta has been successful with mobile applications designed for smartphones by other manufacturers, boasting some of the most popular apps for iOS and Android systems in its portfolio. Furthermore, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp have generated billions in revenue for the company. Nevertheless, the social media giant is aiming for even more.
Meta and Qualcomm aim to integrate AI with smartphones
Qualcomm has announced that its upcoming Snapdragon chips will be fully compatible with Meta's new, advanced language model, Llama 3. This model poses a significant challenge to the GPT models from OpenAI and Google's Gemini.
A key benefit of Meta's artificial intelligence is that the Snapdragon chips can process it directly on the device, enhancing user privacy and operation speed. This capability also enables advanced AI functionalities even without network access.
Unlike Meta’s offering, the Gemini model from Google, which powers AI functions in some Galaxy and Pixel smartphones, operates in a hybrid manner. While some processes are handled on the device, more complex tasks like generating note summaries or generative photo editing, require a cloud connection.
Processing AI directly on the device offers additional benefits, such as independence from expensive cloud infrastructure, the cost of which could ultimately be transferred to users. Samsung has already stated that its Galaxy AI service will remain free until the end of 2025, but after that, access to artificial intelligence might become a subscription-based service.
Thus, Meta could present phone manufacturers with more attractive terms of cooperation, such as receiving a one-off commission from sales instead of recurring fees for server maintenance.
The Llama 3 model is designed to work with the upcoming flagship Snapdragon processors, indicating that the first smartphones equipped with it may not be available until the end of the year with the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Meta has also stated that its AI will work well on other devices, including computers, goggles, and even in cars.
