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Qualcomm Sees Humanoids as Highly Advanced Cars

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Qualcomm is stepping up its entry into the semiconductor market for humanoid robots, drawing on its experience in mobile devices and automobiles, and providing integrated AI software packages and other tools designed to simplify development. Park Jae-hyun, vice president at Qualcomm, said at the "Semiconductors Powering Humanoids" conference held at COEX in Seoul on Oct. 16 that the company views humanoids as highly complex automobiles, stating "We already have all the technologies needed for their development." Qualcomm sees humanoids as operating on principles similar to autonomous vehicles, using cameras and other sensors to perceive surroundings, AI to make decisions and motors to execute movements; while autonomous vehicles typically have three to four degrees of freedom (DoF) and are limited to movement on a plane, humanoids have around 60 DoF. Qualcomm has developed SoCs for robotics, low-power wireless communications, robotic OS technology, power and thermal management, and AI development tools; its Dragonwing SoC portfolio integrates CPUs, GPUs and NPUs, including Dragonwing Q2 and Q4 for consumer devices such as robotic vacuum cleaners, Q5 and Q6 for service robots including restaurant serving robots, the IQ8 for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and quadruped robots, and the IQ9 for early-stage humanoids. The flagship Dragonwing IQ10 features an 18-core CPU based on the Oryon microarchitecture used in PCs and delivers more than five times the computing performance of the IQ9; Qualcomm said its low-power SoC design expertise addresses power consumption and heat generation in enclosed, battery-powered environments. The company also offers Wi-Fi 7 and 5G communication solutions to control hundreds of robots, Linux-based real-time control technology, and software offerings including Qualcomm AI Stack, Qualcomm AI Hub, SDKs, MLOps and AI Data Flywheel.