After weeks of hype and several leaks in the technical press, Qualcomm’s newest mobile processor finally made its official debut at CES 2017. Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf highlighted the new chip’s capabilities in a keynote speech that focused more on the “5G” future than on the technical specifications of the Snapdragon 835.
“The technology we’ve developed and deployed … will get the world ready for 5G years before it can take full advantage of it,” Mollenkopf said. “We’re designing and building for a not yet imagined world.”
Mollenkopf spent a few minutes discussing the new processor’s high profile bells and whistles, including eye-based authentication and secure audio using a voice print, and then said that the chip’s “hallmark is what it means for connectivity.” He said the processor is built for “gigabit class” LTE and will bring a “fiber-like experience to a wireless connection.”
Smartphone manufacturers are expected to pair the Snapdragon 835 with Qualcomm’s 5G modem, the X50, which supports the 28 GHz spectrum band that both Verizon Wireless and AT&T plan to use to test 5G. Mollenkopf said deployment trials with the new modem will start late this year and early next year.
Qualcomm and other chip vendors see three major classes of 5G use cases: mobile device experiences that include augmented and virtual reality; ubiquitous machine connection via sensors; and ultra low-latency connections for mission critical devices. Mollenkopf said Qualcomm will enable mobile connectivity to be reliable in “all the moments when failure is not an option.”
The company’s presentation at CES included a strong pitch to application developers, underscoring Qualcomm’s thesis that much of the value in 5G connectivity has yet to be imagined. Before Mollenkopf spoke, the company showed a video highlighting the disruptive and even rebellious nature of technical innovation.
“Necessity may be invention’s baby mama but rebellion is its restless dad,” the company said. “You’re the genius, you’re the insurgent … and your time is at hand. You’re not about to shine, boys and girls, you’re about to monster this moment.”
“The real bad boys and girls of this world aren’t … renegades who play by their own rules; they’re everyone who jams a thumb in the eye of the status quo and goes out and wizards up something new,” according to the Qualcomm video. The words “renegades who play by their own rules” were accompanied by an image of a group of goldfish in a bowl with one fish swimming away, probably a subtle reference to the public relations campaign surrounding LTE in unlicensed spectrum. Qualcomm, which makes both LTE and Wi-Fi chips, has been a strong supporter of LTE in unlicensed spectrum.
The video was followed by Mollenkopf’s opening remarks, which included a reference to a Qualcomm-sponsored study predicting 5G will create $3.5 trillion in economic value and 22 million new jobs by 2035.
“5G isn’t incremental improvement in connectivity or even just a new generation of mobile,” Mollenkopf said. “5G will be a new kind of network. … That new network will change the way we live, the way we work and even they way we relate to each other.”
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