Best Of MWC 2024 Nominee: Qualcomm AI Hub

Several interesting products were unveiled at the MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona 2024. Looking at the new mobile tech on offer is always exciting, but there are always a few items that resonate a little more fiercely than the competition. One thing that has definitely stood out this year is the number of products that are designed to interface with AI. It seems like every major tech company has been scrambling to integrate machine learning into its products. Even industry giants like Microsoft and Google have been developing their own AI software and researching all kinds of ways for it to interface with their technology. Mobile companies have been boarding the AI train as well, however, and this has led to some outstanding innovations.

With so many new items on display, it can be tricky trying to narrow down which looks to be the most disruptive to the industry. We at SlashGear have had our eye on a few items, though, and in our humble opinion, one of the biggest standouts is the Qualcomm AI Hub. Qualcomm is the company behind Snapdragon, one of the leading processors used in smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other mobile devices. Here's a bit about the company's new AI hub, what it does, and why it's so exciting.

Qualcomm announced several new technologies at MWC. Many of them have promised to serve as a fix for faster 5G, AI, and Wi-Fi that could supercharge your next smartphone. They're all impressive additions to Qualcomm's proprietary lineup, which will certainly help the company maintain its presence as one of the leading manufacturers of mobile processors in the world–but the AI Hub is in a league of its own.

Qualcomm shared a press release covering the device where Durga Malladi, senior vice president and general manager of technology planning and edge solutions at Qualcomm, was quoted. "Now with the Qualcomm AI Hub, we will empower developers to fully harness the potential of these cutting-edge technologies and create captivating AI-enabled apps," he said. "The Qualcomm AI Hub provides developers with a comprehensive AI model library to quickly and easily integrate pre-optimized AI models into their applications, leading to faster, more reliable, and private user experiences."

So what does this mean? Basically, the Qualcomm AI Hub has a library of more than 75 of the most popular AI models that have been pre-optimized to assist in processing AI tasks performed by Snapdragon and Qualcomm-based devices. This takes the AI processing burden off your device itself and allows the hub to take on the brunt of the work. This should work particularly well with products like the newer Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and X Elite SoCs, which are designed to give generative AI a huge boost.