Microsoft and Qualcomm working together on custom AR Chips

At CES 2022, Qualcomm and Microsoft announced collaboration to expand and accelerate the adoption of AR in both the consumer and enterprise sector. Both the companies are working together to develop custom AR chips to enable power efficient, lightweight AR glasses. Also, Qualcomm has plans to integrate Microsoft Mesh and Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform.

“This collaboration reflects the next step in both companies’ shared commitment to XR and the metaverse,” said Hugo Swart, vice president and general manager of XR, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Qualcomm Technologies’ core XR strategy has always been delivering the most cutting-edge technology, purpose-built XR chipsets and enabling the ecosystem with our software platforms and hardware reference designs. We are thrilled to work with Microsoft to help expand and scale the adoption of AR hardware and software across the entire industry.”

“Our goal is to inspire and empower others to collectively work to develop the metaverse future – a future that is grounded in trust and innovation,” said Rubén Caballero, corporate vice president Mixed Reality, Microsoft. “With services like Microsoft Mesh, we are committed to delivering the safest and most comprehensive set of capabilities to power metaverses that blend the physical and digital worlds, ultimately delivering a shared sense of presence across devices. We look forward to working with Qualcomm Technologies to help the entire ecosystem unlock the promise of the metaverse.”

With this announcement, it is almost confirmed that the next generation HoloLens headset will be powered by a custom AR chip that was built in partnership with Qualcomm. It will be interesting to see whether Microsoft has selected the current gen Qualcomm CPU cores or the upcoming Nuvia-based CPU cores for its custom AR chip.

Source: Qualcomm