Qualcomm Announces "World's First" 5G AI and Wi-Fi 7 Chips

Qualcomm announced Monday the launch of a 5G AI-integrated modem-RF as well as a Wi-Fi 7 system-on-a-chip (SoC). 

As such, both offerings are the first of their kind globally, the American semiconductor giant said.  

Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) returned to Fira for the first time since 2019. 

“I see AI as an inflection point in terms of what’s possible next for the fact that this puts you on a new trajectory for better 5G performance and user experience,” Nitin Dhiman, Qualcomm’s director of 5G product marketing, said.  

“Just like AI has done with cameras, for audio, for sound, it will have a similar impact on 5G,” he acknowledged.  

In addition, the new AI-powered 5G modem is one of many connectivity announcements Qualcomm is making this week during the MWC. At the same time, it revealed products and capabilities that are taking Qualcomm technology well beyond the smartphone market.  

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X70 5G modem-RF system is equipped with an integrated artificial intelligence (AI) processor to “fueling a new era” of intelligent 10-Gigabit 5G connectivity.  

To fully understand the image, the addition of AI will reinforce Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X70 5G with contextual awareness and personalization at scale, allowing for “intelligent, intuitive, and automated actions.”   

This includes up to 30 percent improved context detection for higher average speeds and coverage enabled by AI-based adaptive antenna tuning.  

The X70 5G will improve its performance through continued self-learning, allowing it to adapt to new and diverse services, spectrum, and deployments.  

It’s part of Qualcomm’s long-term 5G evolution plan that will enable advanced 5G use cases with AI and machine learning (ML) data-driven designs. This includes extended reality (XR) and 5G New Radio (NR), which is used in the Internet of Things (IoT) and automotive. 

It is worth mentioning that Qualcomm has always been a leader in mobile and has an important opportunity to grow its business at the connected, intelligent edge, Qualcomm’s Global VP of Marketing Mike Roberts noted last week. 

The new technology contains an AI suite designed for AI-powered optimizations for both sub-6 and millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G.   

The modem offers mmWave standalone support without the need for a sub-6 spectrum. It also provides dual SIM-dual Active (DSDA) support, which means device users can have more than one SIM active in their device for different applications.