Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Hey, our Bloomberg Tech team is there on the ground
Speaker 2: at the annual Consumer Tech summit known as CEES. Right now,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Tech co host Caroline Hyde sitting down with Christiano Amman,
Speaker 2: CEO and President of Qualcom.
Speaker 1: Caroline, take it away, Carol, thank you. It is a
Speaker 1: party vibe out here at CES and a man who
Speaker 1: knows all about music from his hometown in Brazil, you'll
Speaker 1: be able to cope with the noise level, Christiano. But
Speaker 1: you're part of not the noise, but the statements being
Speaker 1: made here at the moment robotics, when it comes to
Speaker 1: a future of autonomous driving, when it comes to physical AI,
Speaker 1: talk to us about robots. Where's your technology really leading
Speaker 1: the charge there?
Speaker 3: Yes, Look, we're incredibly excited about this is a new chapter.
Speaker 3: I think of the Qualcom expansion and diversification. I think
Speaker 3: we're going to robotics. We like robotics a lot because,
Speaker 3: by definition, is an EDGEAI problem to solve, not different
Speaker 3: than what we did in automotive. You cannot put a
Speaker 3: server in a robot. You need battery life, you need
Speaker 3: a lot of integration, a sensors and physical AI is
Speaker 3: a massive opportunity and it's an EDGAI opportunity. So as
Speaker 3: we look at this transition of qualcom into new industry,
Speaker 3: we went to automotive to PC to industrial to data center.
Speaker 3: Now robotics this is next opportunity. We actually have a
Speaker 3: number of robots here at our booth at CS demonstrating
Speaker 3: training humanoids industrial. I think we started the year working
Speaker 3: with some of the you know, great companies German, Kuka,
Speaker 3: figure AI, and I think it's going to be a
Speaker 3: great opportunity and robotics it's perfect for you to have
Speaker 3: high performance computing and low power connectivity is an edge
Speaker 3: AI problem and I think it's going to be the
Speaker 3: next big wave of AI physical.
Speaker 1: AI and how soon is that reality? Already we have
Speaker 1: robots in manufacturing and industrials, but how soon is it
Speaker 1: fully autonomous robots? How soon do we start to have
Speaker 1: the humanoid versions in our houses.
Speaker 3: Look the way we think about this is things that
Speaker 3: you didn't well possible to do with a robot, you
Speaker 3: can do it right now use an AI. I think
Speaker 3: industrial robot is the big largest opportunity that we see
Speaker 3: in front of us, and it's probably started as early
Speaker 3: as twenty twenty six. When you use AI to train
Speaker 3: a robot on one given task, it's a very well
Speaker 3: defined problem, and you can do this and you put
Speaker 3: into production consumer robot, the one that is going to
Speaker 3: be in your house and do everything for you. It's
Speaker 3: gonna take a little bit of time, but it's going
Speaker 3: to happen, and it's going to be a big opportunity.
Speaker 3: I like to do this parallel that we saw with automotive.
Speaker 3: When we start talking about autonomous cars, a lot of
Speaker 3: companies went in and said, we're just going to get
Speaker 3: this full autonomou robotaxing. But until you get there, you
Speaker 3: can do assisted riving to every car in the road,
Speaker 3: assuming that the driver is there to pick it up.
Speaker 3: And we've seen Adas level two, Level three Highway Highway autopilot.
Speaker 3: That's what we're doing. I think the same parallel applies
Speaker 3: to robotics. First, you have a lot of enterprise in
Speaker 3: the industrial applications. We see companies, for example, in retail
Speaker 3: at night, robot go to the aisles of the supermarket
Speaker 3: and restart the shelves, something very simple. That opportunity is
Speaker 3: happening right now. Over time, we're going to have the
Speaker 3: domestic robot that will do everything for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go to your car focus though, because your
Speaker 1: DNA is mobile. But then it has indeed gone to robotics.
Speaker 1: But also this is where you've dominated. Look, we've just
Speaker 1: had Jenson Wim on stage saying, hey, I'm getting into
Speaker 1: the world of autonomous driving platforms too. How do you
Speaker 1: see that ecosystem involving Okay.
Speaker 3: The most important thing is to really understand what's happening car.
Speaker 3: Car becomes a digital product. So from Qualcom we're going
Speaker 3: to have a slightly different perspect We think that the
Speaker 3: most important part of the car digital experience is the
Speaker 3: digital cockpit, because the digital cockpit became a new computing surface.
Speaker 3: Like your phone is a computing surface, the laptops a
Speaker 3: computing service. Now the car and when you think about
Speaker 3: AI coming into the car agentic experiences, that is very natural.
Speaker 3: Voice is very natural. That's going to happen to the
Speaker 3: cockpit today. I think we're just announced we have now
Speaker 3: seventy five million cars now in the road with the
Speaker 3: call on digital cockpit. Our pipeline is transforming into revenue
Speaker 3: and we're designed in with virtually every car company using
Speaker 3: the digital cockpit. The next car is what's happening in autonomy.
Speaker 3: And in autonomy you have this transition you can bring
Speaker 3: to bring safety and reduce accidents. You can bring assistem
Speaker 3: driving to every car starting with level two all the
Speaker 3: way up, and then you're going to have full autonomy.
Speaker 3: So we have been actually driving the processor for this
Speaker 3: assisted driving, and now with a stack that we develop
Speaker 3: with bmwe launch it's available. People are testing the car
Speaker 3: here at CES and he's available to every OEM to
Speaker 3: have assisted driving in every car, every car model, and
Speaker 3: eventually you're going to get in a couple of years
Speaker 3: to our fully autonomous cars. Yes, I think Tesla is
Speaker 3: probably ahead. I will say the other solutions a couple
Speaker 3: of years out, but you're going to get to it.
Speaker 3: I think fully autonomous cars, but you're going to have
Speaker 3: out some level of autonomy in every single car.
Speaker 1: And you talk about Tesla being ahead, like you know,
Speaker 1: Moscus said he's not losing sleep over Jensenwan coming after
Speaker 1: that piece of the pie. And of course they have
Speaker 1: a client relationship to who can win and how many
Speaker 1: players can win.
Speaker 3: Look, there's gonna be different types of car ownership. Some
Speaker 3: people wanted to drive the car. Some people wanted to
Speaker 3: have an assisted driving, people want to not own a car,
Speaker 3: some people want to robotex It's a it's a big opportunity.
Speaker 3: I think there's going to be multiple players that are
Speaker 3: going to win. I feel the issue of fully autonomous cars,
Speaker 3: the biggest feature that you have to sell is safety.
Speaker 3: How safety, How safe is your solution is? And I
Speaker 3: think those takes time and one of the advantages. Teslas
Speaker 3: have been doing this for longer, so they have a
Speaker 3: lot of miles or real word miles, not only simulation
Speaker 3: to perfect the solution.
Speaker 2: But it's going to happen.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a reality of many car companies
Speaker 3: in the next few years.
Speaker 1: And of course you've got a strong relationship with Google
Speaker 1: when it comes to being within the auto as well
Speaker 1: in many ways. Take us there for where you see
Speaker 1: the next innovations. Robots were almost there, cars were already there.
Speaker 1: Everyone I'm seeing is getting excited about the wearables, the pennons,
Speaker 1: the jewelry. Where does quankom play in that, because that's
Speaker 1: an edge device.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is another area of excitement for Qualcom because
Speaker 3: we are probably now willing to make a statement that
Speaker 3: is the evolution of mobile platform. Phones are not going anywhere.
Speaker 3: Phones are incredibly useful. They will continue to be useful
Speaker 3: in the same way that when the smartphone arrived, your
Speaker 3: laptop didn't go anywhere. However, when you think about AI
Speaker 3: and agentic experiences, this AI agent that is with you
Speaker 3: all the time and you're gonna ask a question and
Speaker 3: you'll answer, will help you navigate, help you do your
Speaker 3: daily fan that's gonna happen with wearables. Humans already decided
Speaker 3: what they're gonna wear. They're gonna wear glasses and jewelry
Speaker 3: and watches and rings, and you can put an agent
Speaker 3: connect to it give you context because something you wear
Speaker 3: all the time. So we're starting the immersions of those
Speaker 3: smart wearables personal AI devices. We're excited about it because
Speaker 3: this require for you to make something that is small,
Speaker 3: a lot of performance, low power. So every major AI
Speaker 3: company that is doing a device is designing with Callcom
Speaker 3: right now. We have redesign and some of those are
Speaker 3: being announced CS, some will be announced through of the year.
Speaker 3: But personal devices are the neo mobile platform.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, So if that's the way we're going to
Speaker 1: be doing wearables, where is the future PCs? Because that
Speaker 1: was the first sort of broadening out and AIPCS has
Speaker 1: it really caught on and people wanting to go there.
Speaker 1: Is it more enterprise adoption versus a consumer adoption. Yes.
Speaker 3: So the Microsoft just launched the new version of Windows
Speaker 3: with agents, and I think we've all been kind of
Speaker 3: waiting for this moment, and you're starting to see a
Speaker 3: lot of the SaaS companies there are being spent the
Speaker 3: past deck decade going to the cloud creating agents as well.
Speaker 3: So I think we're just at the beginning of the
Speaker 3: inflection point of AIPCS is more at an enterprise play
Speaker 3: than the consumer play, even though it will be part
Speaker 3: of a lot of consumer use cases, and I remain
Speaker 3: optimistic about it. Our PC business were just started. We
Speaker 3: have about one hundred and fifty designs. Most of our
Speaker 3: designs is because people wanted to do a thin and
Speaker 3: light and multi day battery life. But now that you're
Speaker 3: going to put AI running all the time, that's where
Speaker 3: we're gonna shine of unplugged performance and it's gonna happen.
Speaker 3: I think it's gonna happen, and the enterprise boom of AI.
Speaker 3: You're going to see a lot of AIPCS associated what
Speaker 3: is happening on the data center as well.
Speaker 1: So Christiana, for all those people out there who are like,
Speaker 1: this is a bubble, this is the real return on
Speaker 1: AI investment isn't coming yet. What do you say to
Speaker 1: that sort of critique?
Speaker 3: Not for us. I think we're doing We're doing things
Speaker 3: on the edge, the stuff that humans are buying, and
Speaker 3: I think when we're going into the data center is
Speaker 3: for inference. But here's the answer to your question. Everybody's
Speaker 3: playing to win, right, so we've seen this movie before.
Speaker 3: Everybody's playing to win. Everybody's building capacity to win. Will
Speaker 3: everybody win? Probably not. There are gonna be few winners.
Speaker 3: And I think the way to think about this is
Speaker 3: maybe maybe in the short term you could argue that,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe there's an overinvestment. I think it's a
Speaker 3: it's a natural consequence of everybody playing to win. But
Speaker 3: in the long run, I still believe AI is under hype.
Speaker 3: And the way I'll do the parallel for you. The
Speaker 3: Internet in the year two thousand was probably over hyped.
Speaker 3: But in the year two thousand, when people thought what
Speaker 3: the Internet would be today was a fraction, It's much
Speaker 3: bigger than what they thought it would be, and I
Speaker 3: think AI is going to be the same thing.
Speaker 1: Christiana Aman so great to get your ultimism and here
Speaker 1: right on the floor of CS