Qualcomm has been at the forefront of innovation in India for the past two decades, contributing significantly to advancements in technology, particularly in fields such as 5G and artificial intelligence (AI). Its dedication to fostering a culture that prioritizes innovation, includes providing startups and the developer community with access to breakthrough technologies that will further enable innovation that accelerates the digital economy and drives the greater good.
India’s historical leadership in software development has a significant impact on its burgeoning contributions to the global developer community. To strengthen collaborations with its partners and developer ecosystem, Qualcomm is hosting an in-person Developer Conference in Hyderabad on April 17th, 2024, which will bring together 150+ developers, engineers, and industry leaders to showcase their solutions and discuss the latest advancements in tools and technologies that will help accelerate this ecosystem.
More than 10 companies—spanning from embedded design companies, distributors, and independent software vendors are showcasing solutions powered by Qualcomm® and Snapdragon® technologies across segments such as mobile, automotive solutions, robotics, IoT, manufacturing, edge AI boxes and more.
The conference agenda includes keynote addresses by industry and Qualcomm executives, presentations on collaboration programs for partners, and technical sessions covering hardware, software tools, SDKs, and resources for developers that will help to kickstart their projects. Special emphasis has been placed on Edge and Gen AI technologies, with live demonstrations from Qualcomm and partners.
Deeper focus on Developers
Qualcomm is evolving to better connect developers with its offerings and provide better experiences to developers going forward.
While the digital transformation of industries is still in the early phases, the scale of the opportunity for Qualcomm in the long term across many verticals is significant. Qualcomm is accelerating investments in ecosystem development employing an omni-channel strategy to support the growing scale and diversity of its customers and help streamline current community support mechanisms.
Some of these changes include how Qualcomm is adopting a developer-first mindset, scaling its software solutions to support numerous developers beyond traditional customers and contributing to developer ecosystems.
As part of future releases, these developer support resources will be enhanced to add coverage for additional chipset products, software features, developer use cases, sample applications, and support tools.
Unlocking AI Application support for developers
Qualcomm is making strides in fundamental AI research that will bring the core capabilities of AI – perception, reasoning, and action – to every device category, and then scale them across industries, including supporting multiple universities and other external developers through community support mechanisms.
For example, Qualcomm recently announced a grant of $186,000 and front-end support for the newly launched “Edge AI Lab” at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H) towards developing Edge AI use cases and AI models on Qualcomm platforms.
Qualcomm will offer the Qualcomm Innovators Development Kit (QIDK) along with technical knowledge support and mentorship to the research team at IIIT-Hyderabad working on developing Edge AI use cases on Qualcomm platforms. The QDIK is designed to help developers shorten their path to productivity by providing a package of hardware, software, and customer support built on the latest premium Snapdragon system-on-chip (SoC). This gives developers all the features, functions and performance of Snapdragon, all in one place.
The new Qualcomm® AI Hub provides developers a library of more than 80 popular AI and generative AI models pre-optimized for deployment on devices powered by Snapdragon and Qualcomm platforms. Developers can seamlessly integrate these models into their applications, reducing time-to-market, and unlocking the benefits of on-device AI implementations such as immediacy, reliability, privacy, personalization, and cost savings. The optimized models are available today on the Qualcomm AI Hub, GitHub, and Hugging Face. The portfolio is currently available for Mobile, XR, AR, and Robotics Platforms, with more on the way.
New Technologies in IEOT available to developers
At the recent Embedded World Exhibition & Conference in Germany, Qualcomm Technologies unveiled the new Qualcomm® QCC730 Wi-Fi solution and Qualcomm® RB3 Gen 2 Platform designed to provide critical upgrades to enable on-device AI, high-performance, low-power processing, and connectivity for the latest IoT products and applications. The RB3 Gen 2 is also supported in the recently announced Qualcomm AI Hub, which contains a library of continuously refreshed pre-optimized AI models for superior on-device AI performance, lower memory utilization, and power optimized operation. This allows for an out-of-the-box optimized experience across a variety of broadly used AI models deployed across IoT and embedded applications. Developers can view a selection of models for RB3 Gen 2 and integrate the optimized AI models into their applications, reducing time-to-market and unlocking the benefits of on-device AI implementations such as immediacy, reliability, privacy, personalization, and cost savings.
Qualcomm® Linux® is a comprehensive package of OS, software, tools, and documentation precisely designed for Qualcomm Technologies’ IoT platforms to enable a consistent and superior developer experience. The Qualcomm Linux software stack extends support to all processor cores, subsystems, and components within the platform. Qualcomm Linux is currently available for private preview with select collaborators and is planned for wider availability to developers in the coming months.
To expand our open-source expertise and speed product commercialization with Qualcomm Linux, Qualcomm Technologies recently acquired Foundries.io, a provider of an open-source cloud-native platform that abstracts the complexities of developing and updating Linux-based IoT and Edge devices.
As the pioneers in enabling and accelerating the evolution of wireless connectivity, Qualcomm continues to push boundaries and shape the future of the technology. With AI being the next phase of India’s digital growth, Qualcomm’s growing host of solutions is now led by AI and guided by its commitment to bring the latest tools and technologies to India. These are some the latest among Qualcomm’s ongoing initiatives to strengthen the R&D ecosystem in India and long-term investments to drive tech ecosystem growth in India by investing in universities, startups, operators, government initiatives and more.
Quotes from the leadership on the collaboration:
Savi Soin, President of Qualcomm India, said, “India’s developer community is at the forefront of creating innovative solutions for the country and their innovations will continue to unlock growth opportunities. This underscores India’s growing STEM talent which is at par with global standards with a lot of our professionals leading breakthrough advancements. Qualcomm is committed to enable this flourishing community with our global expertise of advancing technology for the society. As a leader in 5G and wireless communications, we are committed to being a trusted partner for India in its digital journey.”
Shashi Reddy, Vice President of Engineering, Qualcomm India, said, “Qualcomm India is working closely with the ecosystem to develop India-relevant AI and 5G use cases and applications. Through this event, we aim to bring developers together and provide them with the hands-on experience of our capabilities while encouraging innovation and the many opportunities that Qualcomm provides. The Hyderabad centre is at the helm of driving rigorous R&D for Qualcomm in India and is aligned with our larger vision of ‘Make in India for the world’.”
Leendert van Doorn, Senior Vice President of Qualcomm, said, “Qualcomm envisions a future where India is at the forefront of AI innovation, fueled by creativity, collaboration, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. The Developer Conference underscores our commitment towards deeper collaboration, research, and innovation in partnership with Indian developers towards advancing AI and Edge AI technologies. We are committed to providing this ecosystem with the technologies and the expertise to shape not just India’s future but for the world.”
