Cristiano Amon CEO Highlights “Focus on Power Efficiency Per Token with AI200”. On the 5th (local U.S. time), Cristiano Amon, the CEO of Qualcomm, stated during a conference call following the Q3 performance announcement (fiscal year 2025, Q4) that “Qualcomm is transforming into a technology company that covers a power consumption range from 5W to 500W.”
He added, “Beyond mobile, business diversification into data centers, robotics, automobiles, and wearables is progressing, and we will strive to lead technology in all fields.”
At the end of October, Qualcomm unveiled two inference-specialized AI system-on-chips (SoCs), AI200/250, which combine its self-developed Orion CPU and Hexagon NPU. These target corporate demand for executing pre-trained models efficiently in terms of power and cost, rather than training new AI models.
Cristiano Amon also stated, “Qualcomm is focusing on securing inference-centric competitiveness in the data center market. Based on our first product, ‘Cloud AI 100’ released in 2020, the software ecosystem is already established, and we are developing solutions extending from SoC to cards and racks.”
He further explained that “AI200 and AI250 are being designed with a new architecture to enhance power efficiency per token and computational density, using DDR memory and PCI Express-based design instead of the existing accelerator structures composed of GPUs and high-bandwidth memory (HBM).”
Apple has incorporated its self-developed 5G modem, C1, in its budget-friendly iPhone 16e and iPhone Air. Akash Palkhiwala, Qualcomm’s CFO/COO, stated, “A significant portion of handset segment revenue in Q3 this year was centered on Android premium clients, with limited contribution from Apple.”
Cristiano Amon forecasted, “The share of Snapdragons for mobile SoCs supplied to Samsung Electronics will be 100% in the Galaxy S25 released this year but will decrease to about 75% in the Galaxy S26 scheduled for next year.”
The recently released XR headset ‘Galaxy XR,’ launched by Samsung Electronics and Google, is developed based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2+ second-generation platform.
Cristiano Amon emphasized, “The proliferation of the AI smart glasses market is accelerating, and XR is expanding from being limited to AR/VR devices to personal devices with integrated AI.”
He added, “AI wearable devices in various form factors, such as smart glasses, watches, and earbuds, are forming a new large market, and this trend could become a core growth opportunity for Qualcomm.”