Qualcomm has announced an addition to its Snapdragon X Series platform, introducing the Snapdragon X Plus. This expansion brings cutting-edge technology to the forefront, promising a significant leap in mobile computing capabilities.
At the heart of the Snapdragon X Plus is the Qualcomm Oryon CPU, a bespoke processor engineered to deliver a reported 37% boost in CPU performance compared to its competitors, all while consuming up to 54% less power. This extraordinary advancement in CPU performance sets a new benchmark in mobile computing efficiency, empowering users to achieve more with less energy consumption.
Notably, the Snapdragon X Plus is tailored to meet the demands of on-device AI-driven applications, powered by the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, capable of handling 45 TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second). This makes it the world’s fastest NPU for laptops, paving the way for a new era of AI-powered computing experiences. This innovation is poised to reshape the PC industry landscape.
Kedar Kondap, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Compute and Gaming at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., expressed excitement about the potential impact of the Snapdragon X Plus, stating, “Snapdragon X Series platforms deliver leading experiences and are positioned to revolutionise the PC industry. Snapdragon X Plus will power AI-supercharged PCs that enable even more users to excel as radical new AI experiences emerge in this period of rapid development and deployment.”
To showcase the capabilities of the Snapdragon X Plus, Qualcomm Technologies demonstrated several AI-optimised applications and features during the launch event. These included:
– Code generation in Visual Studio Code from Codegen, leveraging on-device generative AI to assist programmers with instant code generation.
– Music generation in Audacity, utilising Riffusion on-device AI to create new music from prompts or existing compositions.
– Live captions in OBS Studio, offering an automatic translation of 100 spoken languages into live captions in 100 languages using Whisper on-device, in real-time during livestreams.
It is anticipated that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will unveil PCs powered by Snapdragon X Plus alongside devices equipped with Snapdragon X Elite, with launches expected to commence in mid-2024.
Wanda Parisien is a computing expert who navigates the vast landscape of hardware and software. With a focus on computer technology, software development, and industry trends, Wanda delivers informative content, tutorials, and analyses to keep readers updated on the latest in the world of computing.
