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CRISTIANO AMON - QUALCOMM RELEASES LATEST MOBILE CHIP PLATFORMS BUILT FOR AI
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What Cristiano Amon said
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Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, discussed the company's latest mobile chip platforms at the Snapdragon Summit in Maui, focusing on AI at the edge. He said the main announcement is clarity on what an AI smartphone looks like, with agents operating phones on behalf of users. He emphasized the importance of trust and low friction for these agents. Amon mentioned a new chip with an AI co-processor, similar to data center technology, and noted companies are asking for 100 billion model parameters on-device. He discussed foldables, saying he is on his fifth foldable and is excited about Apple's entry, which will drive the form factor. He noted the mobile market is depressed due to memory prices but premium tier is resilient, with Q3 fiscal as the bottom. On the AWS deal, he said warrants are simple and within the 10-Q, allowing Amazon to participate in Qualcomm's upside, and highlighted Meta as first customer for CPUs and Amazon for custom silicon.
Key takeaways
Qualcomm announced a new chip with an AI co-processor, moving data center technology to phones.
Companies are asking for 100 billion model parameters running on devices.
Amon said Q3 fiscal was the bottom for the mobile market, with premium tier resilient.
Amon is on his fifth foldable phone and is excited about Apple's entry into foldables.
AWS deal includes warrants, allowing Amazon to participate in Qualcomm's upside, as detailed in the 10-Q.
Kelly, thank you. Cristiano, good to see you. Wish I was there. You're in Maui right now for that Snapdragon Summit. And just to put it into context, Qualcomm is the big name at the top of the smartphone Android kind of non-Apple food chain. And so this Summit is a big moment for capabilities. You're talking a lot about AI on device or at the edge, as you like to say. How do you fit that into the conversations now about AI safety and efficiency?
Well, I think that's actually a great area to be part of the conversation. Look, the main announcement that we have on this Snapdragon Summit right now is actually we have now clarity what an AI smartphone look like. We've been talking about that for a couple of years. There has been a number of technologies in AI that made it possible. And we started to see this become a reality. You have a lot of phones now that are basically AI smartphone. They have agents. And those agents start to operate the phone for you. The way for you to think about this, John, is the phone's been designed for you to operate. You go to the apps. You do things yourself. But then there's also agents that are going to go to your apps for you. It's going to go to the cloud and it's going to do things for you on your behalf. It's very interesting engineering challenge. We now have to design chips to allow the phone to be working even when you're not operating it and with an all-day battery life and a lot of AI at the edge. But for those things to be possible, there are two things going to be very, very important. Trust. You have to trust the agent and the AI is going to be working on your behalf. And then you have to have low friction. Otherwise, you do it yourself. A lot of interesting conversation, a lot of devices coming up in the market. We announced a brand new chip for this area including an AI co-processor which is kind of the same technology we did for our data center business that we're just starting moving that to the phones. There are companies now asking for 100 billion model parameters running on your device and some consumers would want the AI to be running on their device for their data and to be in control.
Okay, so Cristiano got to ask you about the hot new thing in smartphones. You're already in I believe the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Z Fold it Ultra a bunch of other Android phones out there that fold. Now Apple's got a foldable that's coming out in a few weeks. They priced it high. You and I have been talking for a couple of quarters now about the downward price pressure across smartphones even hitting the premium end a little bit. What do you think happens now? Does this kind of new wave in foldables provide some upward pressure and how are you preparing?
I'm just going to tell my own experience. I am probably on my foldable phone number five. I think foldable and flips have been probably part I think of the Android ecosystem for a while. We're very excited that Apple is going to build one. If anything is going to go drive more of that form factor. We have seen the kind of the conversions between mobile and tablets and PCs. That's another example of that. The mobile market is still kind of depressed because of the memory prices but we have seen the premium tier have been more resilient. We talked about it in our last earnings that really Q3 fiscal it was the bottom. We are seeing even with higher prices right now. I think demand is holding and I look it's the most important consumer electronic purchase of anyone. So it's a very capable device and with AI devices are doing much more. So, I think it's the kind of the next step on flagship and becoming probably more mainstream.
At the other end of the spectrum and kind of at the other end of the chain, data center, that's an area that you're moving more into with chips. You mentioned it just a bit ago and I want to ask about a deal that you guys announced a week or two back with AWS having to do some with chips. I believe you're also going to use AWS some more within Qualcomm and there's warrants involved. Amazon gets some upside if Qualcomm's stock goes up. Now, there've been questions about whether the incentives throughout the industry are structured correctly. So, it's about real demand when the revenue shows up. Tell me about this deal, why it's structured the way it is, and if there are boundaries that you have around the kinds of deals maybe involving warrants or incentives that you're willing for Qualcomm to do.
Look, I think people may be thinking too much into this. This is a, the warrants it's a very simple exactly all within our 10-Q, but basically is there is an understanding now that, Qualcomm is a company under transformation. We're going to all the different markets. Data center is another one. It did create the great upside opportunity. And it's an opportunity for Amazon to participate into that upside. And actually, if you just look at the difference between our deal and some of the other deals is it's the stock price was kind of the market stock price as you can see in our filings. I think the exciting part here is that Amazon is believing in what Qualcomm can do in the data center is Meta was our first customer on our two generation CPU. Amazon is our first customer on custom silicon and some connectivity that we've been working with them. Yeah, I look at those things as probably a vote of confidence to Qualcomm will have relevant technology for this space.
Cristiano, it's Kelly here. If you don't mind just a quick bigger picture question. You mentioned Meta just now. Do you have any kind of personal anecdotes or usage of Muse? What do you think the impact is even just on phone usage for instance? You talk about kind of the ecosystem and all of these new apps if people love them, they're still apps that you're using on your smartphone. So that and kind of the whole AI supply chain. What impact do you think this is going to have?
Okay, Kelly, that's a great question. I think that's the first point I made. I think this whole Snapdragon Summit has been about we now have clarity what an AI smartphone's going to look like. And Muse is just a great example of that. There's a lot of different agents and orchestrators. I've been using Muse. I've been one of the early adopters when they're doing trial. And I think that's the future. You're going to have agents they're going to do things for you and that's how a smartphone user is going to change.
Amon, C. (2026, September 23). CRISTIANO AMON - QUALCOMM RELEASES LATEST MOBILE CHIP PLATFORMS BUILT FOR AI [Interview transcript]. Daily Ticker Charts. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2949156/
MLA
Cristiano Amon. "CRISTIANO AMON - QUALCOMM RELEASES LATEST MOBILE CHIP PLATFORMS BUILT FOR AI." Daily Ticker Charts, 23 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2949156/.
BibTeX
@misc{amon2026_2949156,
author = {Cristiano Amon},
title = {CRISTIANO AMON - QUALCOMM RELEASES LATEST MOBILE CHIP PLATFORMS BUILT FOR AI},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Daily Ticker Charts. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2949156/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
