What you need to know
- Qualcomm says that it will continue working with Google on future products.
- The company's Snapdragon chipsets have been featured in previous Pixel devices.
- The upcoming Google Pixel 6 will be powered by a custom-built SoC reportedly built by Samsung.
The early announcement of the Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro came as a surprise as Google provided details about the new phones and the company's custom-built Tensor chip. The chip sees Google shifting its dependence away from Qualcomm for its smartphones, but the chipmaker says it's not going anywhere.
As per a tweet by Walter Bloomberg, Qualcomm has declared that it maintains a working relationship with Google and will continue to supply the company with Snapdragon chips for "existing and future products."
QUALCOMM WILL CONTINUE TO WORK CLOSELY WITH GOOGLE ON EXISTING AND FUTURE PRODUCTS BASED ON SNAPDRAGON PLATFORMS - QUALCOMM SPOKESPERSON$QCOMQUALCOMM WILL CONTINUE TO WORK CLOSELY WITH GOOGLE ON EXISTING AND FUTURE PRODUCTS BASED ON SNAPDRAGON PLATFORMS - QUALCOMM SPOKESPERSON$QCOM— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) August 2, 2021August 2, 2021
While the statement is unsurprisingly vague, it's obvious that Qualcomm wants to remind us that its chips are still ubiquitous when it comes to the best Android phones. A Qualcomm spokesperson told Android Central in a statement that its Snapdragon chips "remain synonymous with Android flagship mobile experiences, including our partnership with the Samsung Galaxy, Fold, and Flip series."
The company also boasts the successes that it had with its 800-series chips, including the latest Snapdragon 888, as it reminds us of its long-standing partnership with Google bringing the first Android phones to the market.
It had long been rumored that Google was designing its own custom SoC for the Pixel 6 smartphones, focusing on its AI and machine learning prowess. Google confirmed those plans with Monday's announcement, touting the company's "biggest innovation in Pixel" with improvements in computational photography and speech recognition.
The new chip represents a significant move away from Qualcomm, which has powered all previous Pixel smartphones up until last year's Google Pixel 5. Google's chip is an in-house, custom-built design that focuses on what Google does best. Even in the press release, Google hinted that Qualcomm's chips, while great, just weren't cutting it for what the company wanted to achieve.
AI is the future of our innovation work, but the problem is we've run into computing limitations that prevented us from fully pursuing our mission.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm did not go into detail about the devices "existing and future products" that it would power, but it could hint at the Google Pixel 5a that is expected to launch this month and is said to be powered by last year's Snapdragon 765 chipset.
Qualcomm's statement could also refer to other types of products outside of smartphones, such as the best Android smartwatches that are often powered by Qualcomm chips like the Snapdragon Wear 4100.
Qualcomm has already committed to building new wearable chips, which we can likely expect in the next generation of Wear OS smartwatches. A Google Pixel Watch could be among these devices, although Google remains largely mum on any such device.
Whatever the case may be, Google's move to its own chips for the Pixel 6 doesn't appear to bother Qualcomm, which is gearing up for the launch of Samsung's upcoming foldables at Galaxy Unpacked next week, and should see a healthy boost following the company's already impressive quarterly earnings.
The power of AI in your hands
The upcoming Google Pixel 6 will mark an important milestone for Google with its new custom-built SoC that will power the phone's AI and machine learning on-device, enabling better photography, speech recognition, and tons of new experiences.
