OPINION: Qualcomm has revealed the next-gen chipset set for use in loads of flagship telephones in 2024, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Nonetheless, in contrast to earlier iterations of flagship smartphone chips that provide easy year-on-year features within the CPU and GPU division, this 12 months’s chipset is a special beast completely – and Google needs to be apprehensive.
That’s as a result of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 isn’t purely centered on efficiency; it has an enormous deal with AI, and Generative AI – assume ChatGPT, Generative Fill within the Photoshop Beta and people scarily correct AI-generated 90s headshots doing the rounds on TikTok – particularly.
Extra particularly, the AI Engine inside the 8 Gen 3 boasts help for Generative AI fashions with as much as 10 billion parameters, all on-device with out the necessity for an web connection. That signifies that you’ll have the ability to use AI to carry out duties like producing emails or an itinerary for an upcoming journey with out the AI needing to hook up with the cloud.
It goes far past simply getting an AI to jot down you a social media submit although; the true focus is on digital camera expertise. Qualcomm has this week showcased a variety of firsts for Snapdragon units, together with Picture Eraser tech that removes undesirable topics from photographs, together with a real-time ultra-low gentle picture and video mode, and clever in-sensor zoom that’ll routinely pan and comply with fast-moving topics.
There are additionally cool modifying options like Photograph Growth, similar to what we’ve seen on the Photoshop Beta this 12 months that basically makes use of AI to fill within the gaps across the fringe of a photograph, together with Steady Diffusion – a flowery manner of claiming AI picture technology.
In truth, there’s a selected Quick Steady Diffusion demo that I noticed earlier this week that confirmed the chipset producing completely new photos in beneath a second, all whereas in Airplane mode. That’s the quickest on the planet, each on-device and when utilizing cloud servers.
That signifies that, relying on the options that producers wish to implement from Qualcomm’s wide-ranging AI toolset, telephones outfitted with the next-gen Snapdragon chipset will have the ability to do some completely new issues not seen on some other smartphone. Apart from Google’s Pixel vary, that’s.
Because the launch of the Google Pixel 6 with Google’s in-house Tensor chipset, the corporate has gone all-in on AI, significantly in relation to picture and video seize and modifying, a lot in order that basic efficiency isn’t completely as much as scratch with the remainder of the flagship smartphone competitors.
Nonetheless, options like Evening Sight, Tremendous Res Zoom, Magic Eraser and newer additions like Audio Magic Eraser and Greatest Take often make up for the slight dent in CPU and GPU efficiency as a result of they have been distinctive options to the Pixel lineup that allowed them to ship among the greatest photographs and movies captured on a smartphone. There’s a motive why the Pixel vary is mostly heralded as one of the best digital camera telephone on Android.
However with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 bringing many of those options to different Android smartphones in 2024, together with a lift in efficiency – 30% to CPU, 25% to GPU and 98% to NPU – signifies that not solely are the Pixel telephones not distinctive within the Android market, however they’re now additionally comparatively underpowered.
Whereas I haven’t had the possibility to benchmark the 8 Gen 3 simply but, this 12 months’s 8 Gen 2-equipped flagship smartphones comfortably beat the Tensor G3 of the Google Pixel 8 Professional in most benchmark exams, so I’m solely anticipating the hole to widen additional.
So, whereas Google nonetheless has a couple of months of domination left with its Pixel 8 vary, as soon as 2024 rolls round and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-equipped units start to look within the Western market, Google may have an actual downside on its fingers.