Qualcomm unveils chip for mixed reality to compete with Apple’s Vision Pro
- The chip design firm said the new component, which can run 12 or more high-definition cameras, will be used by Samsung and Google
- Qualcomm’s chips have been at the heart of many other companies’ attempts to lure consumers to the category, which has not yet taken off
Qualcomm, the biggest maker of mobile phone processors, announced the Snapdragon XR2+ chip designed for virtual and mixed-reality headsets that will compete with Apple’s forthcoming Vision Pro.
The San Diego, California-based chip design firm said the new component, which can run 12 or more high-definition cameras, will be used by Samsung Electronics and Alphabet’s Google on products under development.
The market for devices that project information onto the user’s view of the physical world was fired up last year by Apple’s announcement that it would sell a mixed-reality headset. Qualcomm’s chips have been at the heart of many other companies’ attempts to lure consumers to the category, which has not yet taken off.
Augmented reality imposes graphics and written content on top of a person’s view of the world. Virtual reality places a consumer in a closed digital world. Apple’s coming Vision Pro and Meta Platforms' most-recent Quest 3 headset mix the technologies. Previous versions of Qualcomm’s XR chip have been featured in devices from Microsoft and Meta.
Headsets with the XR2+ will use processors and graphics components that are as much as 20 per cent better than their predecessors to project 4K-resolution images on each lens, according to Qualcomm’s Said Bakadir, a senior director of product management.
