Meta and Qualcomm entering into multi-year engineering collaboration to shape metaverse technology
During his keynote presentation at IFA 2022 in Germany, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon continued his characterization of Qualcomm’s technologies as “your ticket to the metaverse,” calling the transition from 2D digital experiences to spatial computing as “the next computing platform…We’re going to blend physical and digital spaces.”
During the keynote Amon announced that Qualcomm will continue its relationship with Meta over the long term and with a deeper level of engineering collaboration. The goal is to further develop the Snapdragon XR platforms to deliver premium and customized products and experiences.
“This is a really exciting future for technology. The merging of the physical and digital spaces will fundamentally change the internet into a spatial internet,” Amon said. “That’s what we’re doing—taking Snapdragon there.”
During Amon’s keynote, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared via video to highlight how the long-term collaboration with Qualcomm will help deliver new types of immersive experiences that leverage connectivity, computing, hardware and other technologies.
“Feeling present with another person is the holy grail of social technology,” Zuckerberg said. “This isn’t something we can or would build alone…That’s where Qualcomm comes in.”
Noting that the existing collaboration has resulted in Meta products like the Oculus Go and Quest 2, Zuckerberg said the engineering collaboration would result in technology for future headsets and other devices that optimize Snapdragon XR platforms for use in Meta devices. “We’re still at the early stages of the metaverse,” Zuckerberg said. “I can’t wait for what we’re going to build together.”
Among called out that, in addition to the products Zuckerberg called out, Snapdragon XR technologies power more than 50 commercial devices. He said XR is “an incredible growth opportunity that we have right in front of us.”
