Qualcomm
2 items across 2 editions. First seen Wed 23 Sep, last seen Mon 5 Oct.
- Huawei's October 5 release describes a "multi-year, broad patent license agreement" with two components: cross-licences to both companies' patent portfolios across 5G, compute, AI and networking, and Qualcomm's purchase of certain Huawei US patents in compute, AI, networking and other areas.
- Huawei's chief intellectual property officer Alan Fan is quoted saying the agreement "not only demonstrates the value of Huawei's innovations, but also recognizes Qualcomm's foundational contributions to modern communication technologies". Qualcomm's John Han, executive vice president and general manager of technology licensing, says it "reaffirms industry recognition of Qualcomm's 5G technology leadership".
- The release discloses no monetary amounts or royalty rates and says the transaction will close after the necessary regulatory approvals. Both companies cite a commitment to FRAND licensing principles.
- A patent sale from a US-entity-listed Chinese firm to a US chipmaker, covering AI and compute, is the kind of transaction export-control and investment-screening regimes reach; the release does not say which regulators must approve it.
- CNBC reports Qualcomm unveiled two versions of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, one with "extreme" branding, built on TSMC's 2-nanometer process and destined for premium phones from Motorola, Xiaomi and ZTE. Qualcomm says the chips are tuned for on-device AI and will compete with Apple's A20 Pro.
- CNBC, citing Counterpoint Research, reports the overall smartphone market is expected to shrink 14% in units shipped in 2026 and potentially another 1% in 2027, driven by skyrocketing memory costs that have raised device prices — the same memory demand that AI data centre buildouts are competing for.
- CEO Cristiano Amon, speaking at the launch on 22 September: "We're going into this transition from what is a very phone-centric model to now an agentic-centric model for new experiences." Qualcomm is positioning its high-end phones as an "AI hub" that can produce tokens without the cloud.
- Qualcomm's claim that the Extreme version can run a 30-billion-parameter model locally is the company's own and has not been independently tested. The Counterpoint forecast is a projection, not a measured outcome.