Qualcomm and Telefónica will leverage Snapdragon Spaces and the carrier’s network infrastructure
In a new collaboration, Telefónica and Qualcomm Technologies will work to expand the XR ecosystem in preparation for the metaverse. The pair will leverage the Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform and Telefónica’s fixed and mobile network infrastructure.
Earlier this month, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon delivered a keynote presentation at IFA 2022 in Germany in which he characterized the company’s technologies as “your ticket to the metaverse,” calling the transition from 2D digital experiences to spatial computing as “the next computing platform. … We’re going to blend physical and digital spaces.
“This is a really exciting future for technology,” he said. “The merging of the physical and digital spaces will fundamentally change the internet into a spatial internet. That’s what we’re doing — taking Snapdragon there.”
Snapdragon Spaces, introduced in November 2021, is a wearable AR (augmented reality) developer kit that the company said will “enable the creation of immersive experiences that seamlessly blur the lines between our physical and digital realities.”
As part of the agreement, Snapdragon Spaces will be used for different projects at the Telefónica Innovation and Talent Hub, the operator’s campus dedicated to the development and exchange of information and technology. This move, said the companies, will “help grow the Snapdragon Spaces ecosystem” and foster new XR products and services.
“XR will redefine how we live, work and socialize,” Dino Flore, VP of technology at Qualcomm Europe commented. “At a crucial time in the technology’s development and roll-out, we are excited to be partnering with Telefónica to grow the active communities developing the ecosystems of the future through Snapdragon Spaces, which we believe will unlock the power of XR and take it to the next level.”
Telefónica, according to a press release, “sees many possibilities in combining immersive devices with powerful networks and decentralised Web3 technologies” and belives that the collaboration will deliver new customer experiences to customers, “re-imagining commerce, entertainment, and communication in the Metaverse.”
Daniel Hernández, VP of devices and consumer IoT of Telefónica, said the deal shows that the operator is preparing for the metaverse future by “building the infrastructure, upskilling the teams, evolving [its] services and putting in place the partnerships which will enable us to bring innovative new devices and services to customers.”
