Qualcomm Inc. late Wednesday announced new products and tie-ups across the board as part of its ongoing push into artificial intelligence.

The announcements followed reports Wednesday that the company may also be preparing to launch a new chip to support mixed-reality headsets.

Heading a flurry of AI-related announcements, Qualcomm subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies Inc. announced the Snapdragon 710 Mobile Platform, built on a 10-nanometer process technology designed with architectures for artificial intelligence. The chip will primarily be used in midtier smartphones and is being pitched as bringing features previously only available in high-end chips and phones.

“By incorporating key AI capabilities and performance advancements, the Snapdragon 710 is designed to transform our customers products into the ultimate personal assistant, enhancing critical everyday consumer experiences, such as high-end camera features that will benefit from on-device high-speed AI processing, without sacrificing battery life,” Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management for Qualcomm Technologies, said in a statement.

The other four announcements relate directly to AI, with Qualcomm announcing a new research organization and three tie-ups to encourage AI development.

The Qualcomm AI Research organization is described as “a cross-functional, cooperative effort that encompasses all of the cutting-edge AI research taking place across the company.” The organization will bring together researchers across the company covering power-efficient AI, personalization and data-efficient learning for smartphones, automotive and “internet of things” devices.

Leading the tie-ups is a new partnership with Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. that will see both companies working together on using the Qualcomm AI Engine to drive conversion and application of Baidu’s PaddlePaddle open-source deep learning framework models. Tying back to the Snapdragon 710 announcement, the partnership will also work on applying the AI and deep learning via Snapdragon mobile platforms through the Open Neural Network Exchange interchange format.

The second tie-up is with Thundercomm Technology Co. Ltd., a Chinese smart device technology provider. The two companies will collaborate in supporting a large ecosystem of developers and manufacturers with their latest on-device AI commercial technology. Thanks to the collaboration, Thundercomm is introducing the TurboX, an AI developer kit aimed at assisting developers to create next-generation AI-enabled products in China, such as factory controllers, car accessories, retail cameras and robots.

The last announcement is a deal with another Chinese company, NetEase Youdao, that will see both working together to accelerate the implementation of Youdao’s real-scene augmented reality translation based on Snapdragon Mobile Platforms that utilize the Qualcomm AI Engine components.

The tie-in with NetEase Youdao on AR segues into reports that Qualcomm is preparing to launch a Snapdragon chip, believed to be called the X1, that will be dedicated exclusively for use in augmented and virtual reality headsets.

According to sources quoted by Bloomberg, the chip will be revealed at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, California, starting May 30. Described as a system-on-a-chip, the X1 is said to include a main processing unit, a graphics processor, components to handle AI tasks and security functions along with the ability to handle voice controls and head-tracking interactions.

The chip is apparently part of a push by Qualcomm to branch into new markets with a product that will assist hardware manufacturers in making powerful and energy-efficient headsets for a lower cost.

Photo: Maurizio Pesce/Wikimedia Commons