Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon on the new world of AI agents - CNBC

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon envisions a new era driven by AI agents, where smart glasses and wearable devices will become central to human-computer interaction. These agents will coordinate across mul... Read original →

Qualcomm’s bet on AI agents and smart glasses represents a fundamental re-architecture of edge compute. This move pressures the entire semiconductor stack—from 3nm/EUV scaling to heterogeneous integration—to migrate into wearables, demanding new NPU-sensor co-design paradigms. Privacy regulations in the EU and U.S. will likely mandate on-device inference, inflating BOM costs by over 15%. While NVIDIA dominates cloud training, Qualcomm targets the agent layer at the edge; Apple and Google will counter with tighter NPU-software integration, and Intel may leverage its IFS foundry to bundle AI PC and wearable ecosystems. If smart glass shipments exceed 50 million units within 18 months, the consumer electronics supply chain will pivot from smartphone-centric to multi-modal wearables—making advanced packaging capacity in Taiwan, China and South Korea a critical battleground.