Qualcomm’s compute and gaming leader: ‘Our aim is to drive convergence of phone and PC’ Premium

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors have consistently enhanced the power and performance of smartphones over the years. Now, the California-based company is looking spruce up the PC.

There is no better way to explain the pace of change in the world of computing than by drawing parallels between Aesop’s hare and tortoise fable, and the two popular computing devices: smartphone and PC.

In a little over a decade, the humble phone has transformed into a mini-computer, while the PC languished. Smartphones have vroomed past their older PC sibling in speed, performance, and in some cases, storage. Mobile phones have become ubiquitous, and the microprocessors powering them have become more sophisticated.

Qualcomm has dominated the smartphone chipset market. And until Apple entered the scene to make its own system of chip (SoC), Qualcomm was the leading mobile computing chipmaker. The company’s Snapdragon processors have consistently enhanced the power and performance of smartphones over the years. Now, the San Diego, California-based company is looking spruce up the PC.

Kedar Kondap, SVP and GM, Compute and Gaming at Qualcomm Technologies spoke to The Hindu’sJohn Xavier about the convergence of the phone and PC, the era of GPUs, the importance of milliseconds in gaming, 5G, and competition in chip making for PCs.

Edited excerpts:

Kedar Kondap: I was part of the mobile product management for over a decade, and about a year ago, I took this role to lead compute. This is a very important market; we’re looking to expand beyond mobile. I’ve been at Intel for seven years, prior to joining Qualcomm, so I’m familiar with the PC market in general. There’s a lot of convergence that we want to drive between a phone and a PC. So, we firmly believe that there is a lot of innovation needed in a PC. In the last 10 years, there has been so much innovation in smartphones, right from displays to camera. We want to drive some of those experiences into the PC which has seen very limited innovation in the last many years. So, our goal is to drive convergence of the phone and the PC.

KK: We think of it in the context of user experiences. We want to bring the same user experiences from the phone to a PC. Over the years, most smartphone consumer experiences have become seamless, from booking a cab to GPS-based navigation. Multiple GPS satellites triangulate to get the best possible GPS signal to the phone. Sensors to track running and walking have also become efficient. This has reduced the drain on battery. All this has happened because a lot of intelligence has been put into the smartphone. It understands when a person is actively using their phone in certain areas. These are some user experiences we’re focused on. When we drive an architecture, we drive it with a power-first approach. Even today, if you ask any consumer, what is most important thing - whether it’s a PC, or a phone - they will tell you it is the battery life. They want the best battery life. So, we’re focused on such experiences that just doesn’t exist in a PC today. We want to change.