Qualcomm launches Snapdragon Reality Elite XR chip

Qualcomm has unveiled a new flagship chip for extended reality devices, the Snapdragon Reality Elite, positioning it as a foundational platform for a coming wave of AI-powered smart glasses and mixed reality headsets. The announcement was made Tuesday at the Augmented World Expo conference in Long Beach, California.

The chip, a successor to the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, represents a significant performance upgrade. Qualcomm claims the Snapdragon Reality Elite delivers up to 60% higher GPU performance, up to 30% higher CPU performance, and a 160% increase in neural processing unit performance compared to the previous generation. This AI boost enables up to 48 trillion operations per second, allowing for on-device execution of large language and vision models to power features like photorealistic avatars and real-time AI assistants.

A key focus is efficiency and thermal management. The company states the chip can provide up to 20% longer battery life under the same workloads while running up to 12 degrees Celsius cooler, improvements critical for enabling smaller, lighter, and more wearable device designs. The platform supports display resolutions up to 4.4K per eye at 90 frames per...