Qualcomm announced at the Augmented World Expo (AWE) Snapdragon Reality Elite, a new app that aims to make future XR headsets and glasses thinner.
Focusing on in-device AI, improved performance and lower power consumption, Qualcomm is targeting both the Snapdragon Reality Elite standalone XR headsets and lightweight connected AR glasses.
As Snapdragon Reality Elite is quoted to deliver AI performance of up to 48 TOPS (trillion operations per second), the company said it will support applications such as AI assistants, photorealistic avatars and real-time creation of digital objects in mixed reality environments.
The Snapdragon Reality Elite-based Snapdragon XR2 Gen 3-based project is said to include improvements to tracking and sensing capabilities, with hand and head tracking and optical passthrough designed to better integrate digital content with the physical world.
Compared to the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 released in 2024, Qualcomm says the new chipset offers a 60% increase in GPU performance, a 30% increase in CPU performance, and a 160% increase in neural processing performance.
In terms of display capabilities, Snapdragon Reality Elite supports resolutions up to 4.4K per eye at 90 frames per second. Qualcomm says it has reduced latency and improved image quality for mixed reality experiences with additional hardware acceleration for computer vision workloads.
Qualcomm claims that the new chipset can deliver 20% longer battery life under the same workload, and – most importantly – can run cooler down to 12 degrees C (~53 degrees F), paving the way for lighter and more comfortable XR headsets and glasses.
“XR adoption continues to expand, with more than 60 million devices already on the market and accelerating across industries.” Ziad Asghar, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Wearables and Personal AI, XR. “As more advanced and integrated XR platforms are developed, the demand for XR technologies that deliver higher performance, greater intelligence and improved energy efficiency is increasing. Snapdragon Reality Elite is designed to meet those needs with AI in a powerful device. Chipsets from the ground up.”
Along with its various concept devices, Qualcomm’s new chip is always a foreboding indicator of what the next few years of XR devices will hold. As such, Snapdragon Reality Elite supports Google’s Android XR platform natively, and is set to debut in several upcoming devices, including XREAL Aura AR glasses and a futuristic headset from Play for Dream, with more to be revealed soon.
Check out the Snapdragon Reality Elite’s spec sheet below, courtesy Qualcomm:
Snapdragon Reality Elite Platform Specifications
Artificial intelligence
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ processor
- Combined AI Accelerator Architecture
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ Vector Extensions
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ Scalar Accelerator
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ Matrix extensions
- Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU
- Qualcomm® Kryo™ CPU
Display support on the device
- Up to 4.4K x 4.4K @ 90 Hz per eye
- 4x DSI
- 2x eDP
- 1x DP1.4 via USB
CPU
- Qualcomm Kryo CPU
- 4 + 2 performance cores
- Up to 2.9 GHz
Qualcomm Spectra™ Image Signal Processor
- Support for 12 simultaneous cameras
- View with 12 MP 2x IFE @ 90 FPS Bayer video
- 10x IFE-Lite for 720P @ 120 FPS mono for perception
- Additional camera support via multi-drop or integration
- Inline spatial noise reduction for low-latency video-through
computer vision
- Visual analytics engine with dedicated computer vision hardware
- General purpose porper
- Triangle
- Inverted triangle
- Optical flow
- SLAM
- 3DR
Video
- 8K60 decode
- 8K30 encoding
- Low-latency slice-based decoding
- AVC, HEVC, VP9 and AV1 decode
Audio
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ DSP
- Embedded neural processing unit
- Qualcomm® Sensor Hub
- Voice UI
- Spatial audio/recording
Adreno GP
- Up to 11% higher GPU frequency
- 12 MB high performance memory
Qualcomm® FastConnect™ 7800 mobile connectivity system
- Wi-Fi Build: Wi-Fi 7
- Peak Speed: 5.8 Gbps
- Wi-Fi Security:
- WPA3-Enterprise
- WPA3-Enhanced Open
- WPA3 easy connection
- WPA3-Personal
- High-band simultaneous multiple connection
Integrated Bluetooth
- Bluetooth 6.0
- Dual antenna Bluetooth
Security
- Secure boot
- Safe Debugging
- Trust zone
- Hardware root of hope
- Full DDR encoding
- Safe app
- Trusted VM
memory
- 4×16 LP-DDR5 memory
- Up to 4.2 GHz
- 8 MB System Cache (LLC)
General specifications
- Storage: UFS 4.0, SD 3.0 / SDExpress 7.0
- Devices: 2x USB3.1, 3x PCIe
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