Qualcomm will soon introduce the new XR chip faster than the Quest 3 chip

Qualcomm plans to unveil its next-generation XR chip in early 2024, which could one day power Samsung and LG’s high-end headsets.

South Korean news publication Electronic Times spoke with Qualcomm’s Vice President for XR Hugo Swart. According to a machine translation of the article, Swart said:

“I can’t reveal the details, but we are cooperating with Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. LG has a lot of expertise in various fields. We are involved in the headset sector and Samsung has made a lot of progress since announcing the cooperation with this company. Qualcomm and Google.”

Earlier this year, Qualcomm, Samsung and Google announced their collaboration to develop a mixed reality headset. The project is reported to be a response to Apple’s XR plans. The company unveiled the Apple Vision Pro in June. The headset will be released in early 2024 and will cost $3,500.

A chip for high-end mixed reality headsets

Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 is Qualcomm’s latest XR chip. The headset was unveiled at Meta Connect 2023, and Meta Quest 3 is the first headset to use it. The chip is based on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and offers more than twice the performance of the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 GPU that powers the latest generation Meta Quest 2 and Pico 4. by the M1 chip in the Apple Vision Pro.

Qualcomm’s next XR chip will likely change that. Electronic Times quotes Swart as saying that Qualcomm will introduce a next-generation XR chip in the first quarter of 2024. Swart did not provide details. The chip could be based on the 3rd generation Snapdragon 8 or the much more powerful Snapdragon X, which is intended for laptops and will compete with Apple’s M-series chips. Both Snapdragon chips were unveiled at the Snapdragon Summit last week.

If Samsung and LG launch their own mixed reality headsets in response to Apple’s Vision Pro, they will likely rely on Qualcomm’s advanced XR chip. The same could be true for Meta: a few weeks ago, another South Korean website reported that Meta is working with LG on a possible successor to the Quest Pro, which will cost around $2,000 and launch in 2025. be released.