2019 is going to be the year of 5G, and Qualcomm wants to make sure it's at the forefront of it all. As CES 2019 rolls along at full steam, the chip-maker has announced that its Snapdragon X50 platform will be at the heart of more than 30 5G-capable devices this year alone.
Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform is the first commercial 5G mobile platform designed to enable the original wave of commercial 5G mobile devices starting in early 2019. With the Snapdragon X50 5G modem family and Qualcomm RFFE (RF Front End) solutions, devices powered by the Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform support both sub-6 and mmWave spectrum, allowing multi-gigabit speeds and low-latency that were unfeasible in mobile so far and will unlock transformative 5G experiences.
Qualcomm notes that the majority of those 30 devices are smartphones from "global OEMs" that are using the Snapdragon 855. In other words, we can expect a lot of flagship phones this year to use the 855 and support 5G.
In other Qualcomm news, the company also announced that it'll be showcasing "artificial-intelligence intuitive in-vehicle experiences" at CES for "next generation vehicles."
Utilizing the natural language processing and speech recognition capabilities offered by Amazon Alexa, Qualcomm Technologies plans to exhibit how the capabilities of highly intuitive voice-based experiences, such as in-car virtual assistance and natural interactions between the vehicle and driver, can transform in-vehicle experiences for next-generation vehicles. Qualcomm Technologies will also feature Amazon Music, Prime Video, Fire TV and Audible services as a part of the in-vehicle demonstration.
It's unclear when any of that will actually make its way to a commercial car that you can purchase, but it'll still be exciting to see what Qualcomm envisions for the future of automobiles.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855: Everything you need to know about the latest mobile platform
