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, no 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