It’s been a big week for Qualcomm, with the presentation of the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the processor that will equip all the next high-end mobile phones from the major manufacturers. But Qualcomm’s reach goes beyond mobile phones and, most notably, the company has made great strides in the automotive sector.
Yesterday the company announced Snapdragon Cockpit Elite and Snapdragon Ride Elitetwo technologies integrated into the Snapdragon digital chassis that some cars already use. The aim of these technologies is to improve the multimedia performance of car touchscreens, with the ability to run modern video games and reproduce visual experiences on up to 16 screens in 4K resolution.
However, this wasn’t the only car-related news from Qualcomm; The announcement of a collaboration with Google could be even more important for the end user, as it will allow the run Gemini and other AI-based assistants directly on the car’s touch screen.
With this agreement, the two companies commit to using their Snapdragon Digital Chassis, Android Automotive and Google Cloud technologies to “advancing the digital transformation” of cars. In other words, this union will give rise to more advanced experiences based on generative AI, including voice assistants and even immersive maps that will help us arrive at our destination without problems.
The goal is to create “peak experiences” in carthe future of Android Auto and Android Automotive could therefore be very different from the current versions, with more modern graphics and more advanced features.
Google will be responsible for providing its generative AI technology, which we recently see in Gemini. For now, Android Automotive and Android Auto still use Google Assistant for voice commands, but there are signs that Google could adopt Gemini in the near future. This collaboration could bring that possibility closer, if some Gemini functions run directly in Android Auto or on the car’s screen instead of relying exclusively on the cloud. For its part, Qualcomm will provide its new chips and the Qualcomm AI Hub, a platform that developers can use to implement and manage AI models on devices equipped with the company’s chips.
Together, the two companies will develop a standardized model for car interiors, which will be integrated into Android Automotive. The immediate result of this collaboration should be a breakthrough in voice assistants available in the car.
