Qualcomm’s Amon outlines an AI-driven smartphone upgrade cycle

Amon expects AI agents that use apps, understand a person’s context and act on their behalf to prompt a new smartphone supercycle.[1] He likened the shift to the early iPhone era, when many of the apps that later defined smartphones had not yet been invented.[1] He also expects AI phone capabilities to meet pent-up upgrade demand among buyers who have delayed purchases amid soaring memory prices.[1] That is Amon’s forecast, not evidence that an upgrade cycle has already begun.[1]

Amon said AI companies are asking Qualcomm to support phones running models with at least 100 billion parameters by 2028, and that these models would need to run continuously.[1] At its Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, highlighting AI features.[2] Qualcomm said the new sensing hubs can run models up to 200 million parameters, while the Extreme Gen 6 can run a 30-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model locally.[2][3] These figures describe different products and model capabilities.[2][3]

Amon believes smartphones will remain central as AI devices develop, and described phones as potential hubs for agents that do work for users.[1][2] He also discussed experiments with camera-equipped earbuds, jewelry, pendants and badges, with Qualcomm supplying technology for different designs.[1] Among those form factors, he expects smart glasses to become the biggest AI-wearable category.[1] Amon called the moment an “iPod moment” and said a successful new device must be trusted, useful and easy to use.[1]

Amon described Qualcomm’s data-center hardware strategy as energy-efficient CPUs and AI accelerators, and said its experience optimizing computing for limited battery power could be an opening as AI infrastructure encounters energy constraints.[1] He said Qualcomm acquired Modular to offer developers an open software platform that works across competing chips; he would welcome deployments on Nvidia hardware because reducing software lock-in could give Qualcomm a chance to compete on its own hardware.[1] For 6G, he described possible continuous high-definition video uploads and radio sensing, with demonstrations expected at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.[1]