With a slew of new models announced at MWC 2024, we are about to head into the mid-generation section of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

Well, in a video message to Snapdragon Insiders at X, CMO Don McGuire made that clear - confirming that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be announced in October at the Snapdragon Summit

What is Qualcomm expecting with this new version? How does this fit in with the rumors about Apple's iPhone 16? These are a few additional details we told McGuire privately at MWC

In the video he talks about how the new chipset will feature the company's Oryon CPU core (found in the Snapdragon X Elite) Besides, McGuire mentions that the new silicon will be "an evolution of our NPU story," referring to the upgraded neural engine

This is consistent with what McGuire said in an exclusive interview with Tom's Guide In it, he further elaborates on how Qualcomm is preparing for a future where AI is "suggestive, predictive, and proactive"

The first step toward that, of course, is the AI hub that Qualcomm announced at MWC 'We've taken in 80 LLMs so far, and we're continuing to take in more that are optimized for the Snapdragon platform: That way, any developer can add AI to their apps with just five lines of code," McGuire commented

While it is clear what the company is trying to accomplish, he sees the challenges clearly These include the size of the model, the potential for model conflicts between apps, and the impact on battery life These are "short-term challenges" for McGuire, and it is not hard to imagine that the improved NPU in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will combine perfectly with these software integrations to go some way toward addressing these obstacles

Of course, the timing of the Snapdragon Summit is no real surprise, and this puts the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 directly in view of the A18 Pro that Apple will be launching with the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro

This is going to be a big AI battle, as Apple CEO Tim Cook recently spoke about the company "breaking new ground with generative AI" this year after making a "major investment" in this technology

The Cupertino crew is keeping close to its chest as to what exactly this is, but rumors suggest that iOS 18 will have huge AI capabilities, including a transformed Siri, powered by a turbo-boosted Neural Engine in the A18 Pro