Qualcomm announced at Augmented World Expo (AWE) Snapdragon Reality Elite, a new processor which aims to slim down XR headsets and glasses of the near future.
Focusing on on-device AI, improved performance, and lower power consumption, Qualcomm says Snapdragon Reality Elite is targeting both standalone XR headsets and lightweight tethered AR glasses.
The company said this could support applications such as AI assistants, photorealistic avatars, and real-time generation of digital objects within mixed reality environments, as Snapdragon Reality Elite is quoted to deliver up to 48 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of AI performance, enabling large language models (LLMs) and large vision models (LVMs) to run directly on-device, cloud processing required.
Snapdragon Reality Elite—essentially the naming scheme for Snapdragon XR2 Gen 3—is also said to include upgrades to tracking and perception capabilities too, with improvements to hand and head tracking as well as optical passthrough designed to better integrate digital content with the physical world.
In terms of raw performance, Qualcomm says the new chipset offers up to a 60% increase in GPU performance, a 30% increase in CPU performance, and a 160% increase in neural processing performance compared with Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2, which was released in 2024.
As for display capabilities, Snapdragon Reality Elite supports resolutions of up to 4.4K per eye at 90 frames per second. Qualcomm said it has also reduced latency and improved image quality for mixed reality experiences through additional hardware acceleration for computer vision workloads
Qualcomm says the new chipset can deliver up to 20% longer battery life under the same workload and—probably more importantly—can operate up to 12 degrees C (~53 degrees F) cooler under load, which is paving the way for lighter and more comfortable XR headsets and glasses.
“XR adoption continues to expand, with more than 60 million devices already in market and growing momentum across industries.” said Ziad Asghar, Senior Vice President and General Manager of XR, Wearables and Personal AI. “As more advanced and integrated XR platforms are developed, demand is increasing for XR technologies that deliver higher performance, greater intelligence, and improved power efficiency. Snapdragon Reality Elite is designed to meet those demands with powerful on-device AI, enabling faster, longer-lasting, and more immersive experiences, and reinforcing our leadership in VR and MR as we build purpose-built XR chipsets from the ground up.”
Along with its various concept devices, Qualcomm’s new chip is almost always a prescient indicator of what the next few years of XR devices is likely to be. In that respect, Snapdragon Reality Elite natively supports Google’s Android XR operating system, and is slated to debut in a number of upcoming devices, including the XREAL Aura AR glasses and a future headset from Play for Dream, with more to be revealed soon.
Check out Snapdragon Reality Elite’s spec sheet below, courtesy Qualcomm:
Snapdragon Reality Elite Platform Specifications
Artificial Intelligence
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ Processor
- Fused AI Accelerator Architecture
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ Vector eXtensions
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ Scalar Accelerator
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ Matrix eXtensions
- Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU
- Qualcomm® Kryo™ CPU
On-device display support
- Up to 4.4K x 4.4K per eye @ 90 Hz
- 4x DSI
- 2x eDP
- 1x DP1.4 over USB
CPU
- Qualcomm Kryo CPU
- 4 + 2 performance cores
- Up to 2.9 GHz
Qualcomm Spectra™ Image Signal Processor
- Support for 12 concurrent cameras
- 2x IFE for 12 MP @ 90 FPS Bayer for video-see-through
- 10x IFE-Lite for 720P @ 120 FPS mono for perception
- Additional camera support through multi-drop or aggregation
- Inline spatial noise reduction for low-latency video-see-through
Computer Vision
- Engine for Visual Analytics with dedicated computer vision hardware
- General purpose warper
- Triangulation
- Inverse triangulation
- Optical flow
- SLAM
- 3DR
Video
- 8K60 decode
- 8K30 encode
- Low-latency slice-based decoding
- AVC, HEVC, VP9, and AV1 decode
Audio
- Qualcomm® Hexagon™ DSP
- Embedded neural processing unit
- Qualcomm® Sensor Hub
- Voice UI
- Spatial audio / recording
Adreno GPU
- Up to 11% higher GPU frequency max
- 12 MB high-performance memory
Qualcomm® FastConnect™ 7800 Mobile Connectivity System
- Wi-Fi Generation: Wi-Fi 7
- Peak speed: 5.8 Gbps
- Wi-Fi Security:
- WPA3-Enterprise
- WPA3-Enhanced Open
- WPA3 Easy Connect
- WPA3-Personal
- High-Band Simultaneous Multi-Link
Integrated Bluetooth
- Bluetooth 6.0
- Dual antenna Bluetooth
Security
- Secure Boot
- Secure Debug
- Trust Zone
- Hardware Root of Trust
- Full DDR Encryption
- Secure Processor
- Trusted VM
Memory
- 4×16 LP-DDR5 memory
- Up to 4.2 GHz
- 8 MB system cache (LLC)
General Specifications
- Storage: UFS 4.0, SD 3.0 / SDExpress 7.0
- Peripherals: 2x USB3.1, 3x PCIe
