Leading AI companies are asking Qualcomm to develop smartphone technology that can continuously run large language models (LLMs) with 100 billion parameters. They want the capability by 2028.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon discussed the requests on the Sources podcast. He declined to name the companies and said some have begun developing their own phone hardware.
Qualcomm’s newest chips can run models with up to 30 billion parameters. The requested models would be more than three times larger.
The goal is to move beyond on-demand assistants to “always-on” agentic AI that can reason and act on a user’s behalf. But memory supply constraints and the power needed to run such large models pose technical challenges, including avoiding battery drain and overheating.
Amon said the shift could trigger a “battle of the agents” and a new supercycle of smartphone upgrades.