Open up a new battlefield for AI! Qualcomm bets on in-car AI, supplies BMW and Mercedes-Benz, and collaborates with Amazon Web Services to develop vehicle software.

Facing the fierce competition from NVIDIA in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Qualcomm, which has long been deeply involved in mobile chip development, is opening up new battlegrounds.

On Tuesday, September 5th, Eastern Time, Qualcomm announced a series of new partnerships, including the launch of new AI features for vehicles and collaborations with two luxury car brands, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, to supply chips. They also reached a cooperation agreement with Amazon's cloud computing service, AWS, for automotive software innovation.

In the press release, Qualcomm revealed that they will collaborate with automakers such as BMW to provide various functions for vehicles, including information and entertainment systems and advanced driver assistance systems. Qualcomm will provide chips to BMW to help realize in-car voice command functions and will also supply chips for the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which is scheduled to be launched in the United States early next year.

Qualcomm stated that the BMW Group will receive Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon Digital Chassis Solutions. The new BMW vehicles will now have access to Snapdragon Automotive Digital Cockpit Platforms and Snapdragon Automotive Connectivity Platforms. BMW vehicles will be able to apply the Snapdragon Ride driving platform by 2025.

Qualcomm will provide the Snapdragon Digital Chassis Solutions for the Mercedes-Benz E-Class. Qualcomm's next-generation Snapdragon Cockpit and Snapdragon Automotive Connectivity Platforms will bring immersive and interactive intelligent in-car experiences, as well as 5G connectivity and cloud services.

Qualcomm also stated that they are committed to long-term collaboration with AWS to drive the future of Software Defined Vehicles (SDV). Qualcomm and AWS recognize the rapid growth of software-defined capabilities, and end customers want to bring new features to the market faster. Both parties will provide comprehensive development infrastructure and tools to accelerate the transformation of autonomous driving and SDV vehicles.

Qualcomm stated that the collaboration with AWS will help accelerate the democratization of future SDV development. Both parties will strongly support automakers in conducting cloud technology experiments and applying these technologies to their development processes.

Qualcomm revealed that high-end luxury car manufacturers, including BMW, have already partnered with Qualcomm to develop the next generation of autonomous driving systems. These systems are based on the open, scalable, and modular Snapdragon Ride platform. The platform has an integrated Ride Vision software stack, which enables 360-degree perception of vehicles.

One month ago, Qualcomm announced that its second-quarter revenue exceeded expectations, declining by 23% to $8.442 billion, with the mobile chip business performing even worse, with a revenue decline of 25%, and the automotive business revenue declining by 13%.

During the Munich Motor Show in Germany this Tuesday, Qualcomm's CEO, Cristiano Amon, revealed his ambitions to expand the automotive business. He stated that Qualcomm expects its revenue in the automotive field to reach $4 billion by 2026 and increase to $9 billion by the end of 2030.

Amon said that one of Qualcomm's top priorities is to find new areas of growth, including the automotive sector. Up to now, large language models (LLMs) have relied on a large amount of data on the cloud to generate text and images. Amon believes that there will also be a high demand for on-device generative AI in the future. In June of this year, he stated that Qualcomm has unique capabilities to run AI models locally, which not only improves performance but also significantly reduces costs.

During the release of the second quarter earnings report in August, Amon stated that Qualcomm is capable of running AI models on smartphones instead of cloud servers. As the scope of AI use cases expands, on-device AI has the potential to drive significant transformations in all of Qualcomm's products, which could lead to future revenue growth.

Amon believes that Qualcomm is still in the most advantageous position to lead the aforementioned AI transformation due to its unparalleled acceleration computing performance and energy efficiency. In summary, Qualcomm can help shape and seize the upcoming opportunities for generative AI on devices.