Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said AI companies may soon launch smartphones running 100-billion-parameter models locally by 2028. Amon noted that these firms are in touch with Qualcomm to build on-device capabilities. He believes phones are here to stay, saying, “Phones are not going to go anywhere, and it is the largest development platform.”
So far, AI companies have largely focused on software, be it AI models running on the web or even chatbots on your phone. But it seems that soon, these AI labs may launch their own smartphones. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has teased that AI companies are working on smartphones with plans to run 100-billion-parameter models locally.
Speaking to Alex Health at the Snapdragon Summit, Amon claimed that AI companies – whom he did not name – were in touch with Qualcomm over on-device capabilities for their smartphones. "I have to be careful not to disclose names, but some AI companies right now, some of the companies at the forefront of AI are telling Qualcomm,” he said.
The Qualcomm CEO said that these AI companies wanted to run 100-billion parameter models on smartphones by as early as 2028. “By 2028, I need to make sure that I have the ability to run at least a hundred billion parameter model into a phone,” Cristiano Amon added. “And I needed to have this thing running kind of all the time.”
Parameters are the values an AI model learns during training. The larger the parameters, the more capable the model usually is. While the most advanced AI models today are believed to have trillions of parameters (Kimi K3, for instance, has 2.8 trillion), 100 billion parameters for a local model could allow for significantly higher capabilities than what phones have today. For example, Gemini Nano-2, used in select Android flagships today, has 3.25 billion parameters.
There is little information available on what such phones from AI companies could look like. However, there have been reports that OpenAI might be making a smartphone that may be the "anti-iPhone."
Phones are not going anywhere
As AI models have gained popularity, there have been concerns about the future of smartphones. Meta recently announced a pendant-like Muse Charm for its personal assistant, while OpenAI is reportedly working on its own hardware devices. However, Cristiano Amon believes that your smartphone is here to stay.
“Phones are not going to go anywhere, and it is the largest development platform ever created by mankind,” he explained.
Amon insisted that for users, a mobile device remains the most convenient way to use technology like AI. “Humans are not going to travel to a data center, ring the bell and say, give me some AI,” he noted. “You're going to use that to the mobile devices and they're going to have a part in this picture." Instead of smartphones being sidelined, Amon added that it would become a hub for AI agents that do the work for you.
Amon's remarks come alongside Qualcomm's wider push around on-device AI in smartphones. At its Snapdragon Summit, the company announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, with a focus on AI features. Qualcomm said the new sensing hubs can run small models of up to 200 million parameters. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 can run a 30-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model locally, while both chips can support a complete voice-in and voice-out agent. Qualcomm has said it is working on more than 40 AI devices.