Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in Maui marked a milestone this year as the company celebrated a decade of the event while outlining what it calls a “new phase of Snapdragon.” Chief executive Cristiano Amon positioned artificial intelligence at the center of the company’s future, declaring that Qualcomm’s strategy is to bring “AI everywhere.” Amon also looked ahead to the wireless future, confirming that Qualcomm expects its next-generation 6G technology to be ready by 2028, setting the stage for yet another leap in global connectivity.
One notable highlight came from Google’s Rick Osterloh, who suggested that his company is building a shared technical foundation for PCs. While details were sparse, the comment appeared to reference Google’s long-rumored efforts to merge ChromeOS and Android into a unified platform. If realized, such a move would further reinforce the industry’s shift toward AI-driven, cloud-and-edge-integrated ecosystems across devices.
Amon underscored that Qualcomm’s ambitions extend far beyond smartphones. While Snapdragon has become synonymous with mobile performance, the company now sees wearables, PCs, and other connected devices as extensions of the smartphone that will increasingly tap into AI. In this vision, devices like smartwatches, glasses, and even appliances will function as “agents” working with the phone’s AI core to manage tasks ranging from scheduling and communications to finance and personal productivity. Amon referred to this vision as an “ecosystem of you,” where AI acts as the connective tissue across all devices.
Underlying all of this is a layered approach to AI computing. Amon described a future where tasks are distributed across the cloud and the edge in a tiered manner. The cloud will remain essential for ingesting vast amounts of data and training large models, but the edge—smartphones, PCs, and wearables—will fine-tune those models for personalization and apply them directly to the user’s context. In Amon’s words, “AI is the new UI,” signaling a dramatic shift in how people will interact with technology in the years ahead.
