“Ten years ago, you could never have imagined what your phone can do today. And all of that starts with the chip. Once you unlock that capability, all the applications, use cases, and experiences begin to flow. People get creative with what they can do once that capability is unlocked,” explains Cindy Lei, director of product management at Qualcomm, highlighting why silicon is the super brain power of a smartphone and why it’s even more important now in the AI age. Lei, who led development of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Qualcomm’s new system-on-a-chip announced this week at an event in Hawaii, says designing a chip is becoming increasingly complex, especially now that there’s much more going on inside the silicon. She explains that because smartphones are far more advanced than they used to be, and with Artificial Intelligence entering the picture, customisation now happens at a much deeper level. Qualcomm’s Cindy Lei led the development of Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)“If you look across the SoC, we have so many technologies working together to make everything happen. It’s super complex, super challenging. That’s part of the reason why we develop so many custom technologies, because it gives us much more control over how everything integrates,” Lei told indianexpress.com in an interview on the sidelines of the Snapdragon Summit. It’s a move analysts say gives Qualcomm more control of all the core technologies that go into an Android smartphone. “Whether it’s the third-generation Orion CPU, our new Adreno GPU, the significantly improved Hexagon NPU, or our camera system that’s now fused with AI and professional video, all of it works together,” she added.As Lei explained, “designing a chip is like a symphony—it’s synchronised and can’t miss a beat”. “We design the hardware with the right technologies and the right hooks in place. Then the software comes on top to optimise and fine-tune. It’s really a combination of all of that working seamlessly. At the end of the day, our goal is for the technology to fade into the background.”Qualcomm, the largest maker of mobile chips used in smartphones, designs system-on-chip, or SoC, a type of semiconductor that contains different components. Unlike Apple, which is a vertically integrated company and keeps its SoCs exclusive to its own products, Qualcomm licenses its technologies to brands such as Samsung and Xiaomi, which use its chips in their smartphones.The company’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, its next-generation chip designed for next year’s flagship Android phones such as the newly announced OnePlus 15, includes improvements in efficiency and performance, along with faster processing for AI agents. As Lei points out, mobile SoCs take years to develop; the industry norm is around three years, which means companies like Qualcomm have to work on features well in advance to when they become widely popular.Story continues below this ad The flagship mobile chip boosts efficiency, performance and AI neural processing. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)Also Read | As Qualcomm unveils new AI Chips for smartphones and laptops, CEO Cristiano Amon sets course to make company an ecosystem player“For us, we look at the problems we want to solve. It’s not about specs or numbers, but about improving the things every customer and consumer wishes their phone could do. That’s what we want to address. At the same time, we also look at how to improve and deliver better premium experiences across devices. They [smartphones] are expensive, so we want to make sure people get those premium experiences on their phones.”Lei cites the example of the battery life on smartphones, particularly the ones coming with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, hitting the market. “I have a system team that manages and optimises power, and another team that focuses on thermals. They work hand in hand. If you want to hit those really high peak capabilities, the system has to quickly bring performance down to the most efficient level, and then transition back and forth across different types of cores. There’s a team that optimises all of that together.”“For this generation, what we have done is start working with customers who are using new battery technologies, like silicon anode batteries. These already offer better battery life on their own. But as a whole system, we looked at this trend and asked: what can we do to maximise it?“So we optimised our entire platform to squeeze out every bit of performance from these batteries. Normally, when your phone drops to around 10 per cent, it runs out really fast – you might hope for two or three hours, but it usually doesn’t last that long. We have worked at the system level to optimise that last stretch, so even when you are close to the end of the battery, you can still squeeze out a lot more,” she said.Story continues below this adSnapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is designed to power AI agentsQualcomm works closely with its ecosystem partners, including smartphone brands and companies like Google, whose Android is the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, powering devices from Samsung and Vivo to Xiaomi. This means that when developing a new mobile chip, there’s a lot happening behind the scenes, especially in the age of artificial intelligence, where new models appear every six months. To support the latest AI capabilities – not just now, but in the future- mobile chips are designed differently than they used to be.For example, on the AI front, the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s neural processing unit is 37 per cent faster, handling AI queries at 220 tokens per second, an improvement over its predecessor’s 70 tokens per second. The mobile chip is also designed to power AI agents, the next generation of AI assistants that make decisions and act on behalf of users.“We take all of that into consideration to make sure we have the right bandwidth, the right memory, and the right processing power to support it all,” Lei responded. “And it’s going to be intuitive. You won’t have to constantly click around your phone. The whole idea of personalised AI is that it’s seamless – it runs in the background and just happens. It’s an assistant for you, not your assistant.”For Lei, smartphones are at the center of the ecosystem, meaning they are connected to different products, be it smart glasses, smartwatches, earbuds, or even a car’s dashboard, all at the same time. This means a chip inside a phone is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but some tasks are better processed by the connected device, such as a pair of wireless earbuds. Story continues below this ad“The system isn’t just an SoC anymore. It’s not just a platform anymore. The system now expands to all the wearables that work together seamlessly.” AI could be the big story with Qualcomm’s new chip, which will power 2026’s high-end Android smartphones. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)“We are really at the front and center to know exactly how it works, to experience it, to test it out, and to make sure our pipeline across all devices is aligned, and that connectivity and processing work together,” she added.Lei agrees that not every consumer uses all the features a mobile chip offers, and some discover them much later. But that has always been the case. For example, she mentioned the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec, which allows near-lossless video capture and extensive post-production control. Add in Dragon Fusion, an ArcSoft-powered AI video pipeline, and it translates to richer colours, more detail in shadows and highlights, and cinematic results straight from your phone. Lei also highlighted the Snapdragon Audio Sense suite, which brings studio-level sound capture to smartphones, thanks to something called piezoelectric MEMS microphones and AI processing. It delivers wind-noise rejection, audio zoom, and HDR audio recording, eliminating the need for external microphones. It’s a godsend feature if you are a content creator. Story continues below this adLei reminds us that these features exist, but it depends on the type of user you are. “When you get to this ultra-premium type of chipset, we want to make sure we cater to everybody’s needs and maintain a good balance across the board,” she said.Also Read | 6G smartphones could arrive by 2028, Qualcomm CEO hypes next‑gen wireless standard at Hawaii eventOne of the most discussed aspects of a smartphone, but not fully understood by many consumers, is how complex it is to design a camera for a mobile device. From a smartphone brand’s perspective, cameras remain one of the biggest differentiators between rival brands. “We don’t just work in isolation on cameras. We collaborate with our vendors and OEMs years in advance. We are involved in the development of sensors early on, so we know what the next-generation sensor will be. Our camera ISP pipeline has to be ready to support it. That’s why we have increased the pipeline to 20-bit to handle the new sensors we know our OEMs will adopt. Each OEM might choose different sensors and use them in different ways, and that’s part of how they differentiate themselves,” Lei said. Apps not going awayAs artificial intelligence sits at the center of the experience, Lei says modern smartphones now have contextual awareness to understand you. “Your phone now sees what you see, hears what you hear, and understands your surroundings. And not only that, over time it also learns your preferences.” That marks a big change from how smartphones worked in the past and how they will evolve in the future.Story continues below this adAs Lei sums up, applications aren’t going anywhere; they are only going to become more powerful once combined with the AI system.“Apps will still be there, but with AI we will be able to help you with many of them. You won’t need to click on them. For example, if you are driving, you won’t have to use one hand to tap on an app to make it work. Your AI, built into the system, will assist you. It could be through voice, or even a simple gesture,” Lei said.