Qualcomm will unveil new Snapdragon X laptop CPUs next week to power low-cost AI-capable devices in India. The firm has targeted the midrange laptop segment in the country. The chipmaker’s OEM partners are expected to introduce new Copilot+ laptops priced around $600 (roughly Rs. 52,000) and offer support for on-device AI features. The company is also expanding via retail channels—it set up the first Snapdragon Experience Zone at a Croma outlet in Mumbai on Thursday.
Ahead of the launch of the new Snapdragon X-powered laptop models, Gadgets 360 sat down with Kedar Kondap, Qualcomm’s Senior Vice President of Product Management, to discuss the chipmaker’s plans to expand in India and how its retail expansion fits into its strategy.
On Qualcomm’s efforts to bring its Arm-based Snapdragon chips to laptops in India
Kedar Kondap: Our journey on PCs started a few years ago — we launched a new CPU, which was the Qualcomm Oryon CPU, and our intent was to deliver the best performance, battery life, and AI performance. We did this across three different tiers – the Snapdragon X Elite, Snapdragon X Plus, and the new Snapdragon X.
The sweet spot for PCs in India is around $600 (roughly Rs. 52,000). Snapdragon X Elite targeted PCs that cost over $1,000 (roughly Rs. 86,700), X Plus covers PCs priced at $800 (roughly Rs. 69,400) and above, and the newer Snapdragon X is designed for $600 (roughly Rs. 52,000) or more.
The consumer understands Snapdragon in phones, and we want to drive that same association with Snapdragon in PCs. We just launched a new Snapdragon Experience Zone at one of the flagship Croma stores in Mumbai. And so, the intent is to familiarise the Indian consumer with the association between the phone and the PC while showcasing all the different experiences enabled by these chipsets.
How the laptop market in India has responded to Snapdragon-powered laptops
Kedar Kondap: I think it’s still very early, but it has been promising. Penetration for PCs in India is about 10 percent. We want to make sure consumers understand the benefits of the technology and the advancements we’re making in PCs. We did the same thing with phones. When you think of premium Android phones, they offer long battery life, CPU and camera performance, reliable GPS, and more. We want to drive that same association on PCs.
Microsoft has been a fantastic partner. First, they brought all the Copilot+ experiences exclusively to Snapdragon. At the same time, other PC OEMs like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Asus have built their core platform products across different price points from the Snapdragon X, X Plus, and X Elite, including in India. This process typically takes a little bit of time. We have already unveiled multiple devices at Croma today, and you’ll hear more from our partners on February 24 regarding Snapdragon X.
What led to Snapdragon’s retail expansion, and how launching an experience zone at Croma fits into Qualcomm’s strategy
Kedar Kondap: Look, we come from a legacy of phones, and the way a consumer buys a phone is very different from how they buy a PC. Not every buyer wants to touch and feel a phone, but there’s still a large number of customers that want to try out a PC before purchasing it. Second, more specifically in India, the consumer relates to Snapdragon on phones, but they might not relate to Snapdragon PCs just yet.
People want to be able to understand what exactly Generative AI is and what they can do with it on a laptop. There are a lot of use cases for creators, students, corporate employees, or software engineers. We want people to associate Snapdragon PCs with premium experiences with Windows, so that when they walk into a Croma store, they can try out these experiences for themselves at the new Snapdragon Experience Zone, which isn’t available at other retailers.
On improveing compatibility with popular apps relied on by Indian users on Snapdragon-powered laptops
Kedar Kondap: To begin with, Microsoft telemetry data shows that 93 percent of the apps used globally today are native. I like to think about app compatibility in three phases. Microsoft did a fantastic job with Prism, which is the Arm emulator which offers reliable performance. Second, we’ve got hundreds of apps now that are already running natively on Snapdragon PCs.
And finally, these apps can take advantage of the heterogeneous architecture that we have across the ISVs – for example, when apps run on the CPU, but some tasks are offloaded to the GPU and the NPU. That’s when you start to see benefits like improved battery life. So for the most part, for consumers in India, most core apps are probably already working natively on Snapdragon PCs.
When it comes to LLMs, we’re already working with most — if not all — providers. With our Qualcomm AI hub, developers can upload and compile all of their code. As long as the app is on the AI Hub, it’s seamless enough for the developer to be able to take that application and just support it. We give them all the tools the documentation to make it as seamless as possible.
Competing in an AI-drivel computer market using Snapdragon’s diversified portfolio across price segments
Kedar Kondap: The one thing we’ve kept constant across the Snapdragon X, X Plus, and X Elite chips is the same NPU, with 45 TOPS. We’ve kept the same DDR across all chips to ensure that all of these LLMs and generative AI models have all the bandwidth they will need while scaling the other parts of the technologies across the tiers. At the same time, models are also being optimised.
So what you could do with, say, a 13 billion parameter model, now you could run like 20-40 million parameter models while still achieving comparable accuracy. As a result, we can deliver reliable performance battery life across the entire tier of products, using the same Oryon CPUs that scale, and it’s the same 45 TOPS for AI use cases.
On the possibility of customers holding on to laptops powered by Arm-based processors for longer
Kedar Kondap: If a consumer walks into a store, they need to understand that some legacy devices from non-Snapdragon-based architecture don’t have an NPU. So you’re not future-proofing your purchase — if you buy a PC without 45 TOPS performance, it might be ‘outdated’ within a few weeks or months. Generative AI is moving rapidly, so you wouldn’t be buying a PC of the future.
When you think about smartphones, consumers didn’t upgrade as fast at first. But when they saw the benefits of technology, consumers in India quickly switched from a feature phone to a smartphone, which enabled features like clicking images, browsing the web, watching content without a TV, and so on. Eventually, customers started upgrading to phones with bigger screens or with 5G connectivity. So as consumers are more aware of what they are getting, they might be more willing to spend and use a better device.
The PC market hasn’t seen that level of excitement in years, but we want to bring that back with Snapdragon Experience Zones. When consumers start to see the benefits, such as “okay, this PC lasts a long time”, or “I don’t need an external camera, because this PC optimises the built-in camera performance”, or “it saves my time with Generative AI features”,,.
Working with educational institutions in India to increase awareness of Arm-based computers
Kedar Kondap: We’re doing multiple university engagements across the globe, and we’re making it as ubiquitous as possible for the kids and showing them exactly what they can do with AI models on these PCs.
And again, while we want to grow fast, we also want to ensure that we understand whether we’ve solved any of their application issues, before we go to a university. In certain student communities, they may want a certain set of applications that may not necessarily be ported yet.
So, while it is a big audience for us, we have to make sure that we spend time, working with all the developers, just like we do in the enterprise and in commercial space. As part of our developer communities, we also provide access to Snapdragon PCs to help them understand the platform.
Comparing Snapdragon-powered AI PCs with traditional x86 systems that are now beginning to offer AI features
Kedar Kondap: Running everything on the cloud is not economically viable — we’re going to need on-device AI, you’re going to need some cloud computing, and a hybrid version that uses a bit of both. I think the fact that everybody else is responding by providing access to more on-device AI just tells you the importance of where this is going. When it comes to the Snapdragon X, I don’t think there’s a competitor today that even supports 45 TOPS performance at that price segment.
Making AI-powered technology more accessible via Qualcomm’s retail expansion
Kedar Kondap: We’re training resellers and the sales staff at retailers about AI technology available on Snapdragon devices, and we can also better demonstrate generative AI tools at experience zones like the one we just opened at Croma. You can show the user what you can do with the device, instead of just talking about it, by performing tasks like image upscaling or features like DJ Pro, which is aimed at musicians.
At Qualcomm, we have over 3,000 engineers at Qualcomm using AI to write several million lines of code through Codegen. Being able to see that in person at a store is different. The customer also realises that the PC continues to understand the user and their needs over time. When we’re in a retail environment, and the retail staff can explain that a customer can get this experience on this $600 (roughly Rs. 52,000) laptop or perform these additional tasks on a $1,000 (roughly Rs. 86,700) model, customers might then decide to purchase a laptop with AI features based on their budget.
On potential plans to partner with OEMs on exclusive stores that only sell Snapdragon-powered PCs
Kedar Kondap: I can’t share details of what we’re working on at the moment, but like I said, our first experience zone with Croma in India is now open to showcase the capabilities of Snapdragon PCs. We’ll see how it goes. It’s designed to bring us closer to the consumer while ensuring that the same Snapdragon brand that the consumer trusts in a phone today is the one they can trust on PCs or in XR or, in wearables or in any of the other devices that power a consumer’s experience today. Think of it as a journey that we’re on and want to relate to the consumer as quickly as we can.
Some responses have been condensed and slightly edited for clarity.