CES 2022: Qualcomm, Microsoft working on a new chip for metaverse

The metaverse is coming and companies are embracing this trend with open arms. The latest company to join the bandwagon is Qualcomm, which in partnership with Microsoft is developing a chip that will bring ‘metaverse to people’. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2022, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon announced that the company is working with Microsoft for developing a custom augmented reality (AR) chipset that would control new power-efficient, lightweight AR glasses that can be used by consumers and companies alike for accessing the metaverse.

He also said that the two companies will work on integrating their custom AR chips with the software, which can then be used by developers for creating virtual worlds wherein users can work and play.
Apart from a dedicated AR chip and software platform, Qualcomm and Microsoft are also planning to integrate software like Microsoft Mesh and Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform.

For the uninitiated, Microsoft Mesh is a new mixed reality (MR)-based platform powered by Azure that enables people in different physical locations to join collaborative and shared holographic experiences on many kinds of devices. While introducing the platform at its Ignite conference last year, Microsoft had envisioned Mesh to enable users to express themselves as avatars in shared virtual worlds and with the ability to holoport their avatars arriving later on. Then in November last year, the company rolled out support for Mesh in Microsoft Teams with the idea of enabling users to join meetings as their holographic avatars for a shared virtual experience. Around the same time, Qualcomm had introduced Snapdragon Spaces, a headworn augmented reality (AR) developer kit to enable the creation of immersive experiences.

Now, the two companies are working together to bring their individual expertise for developing a unified chipset and accompanying software that will boost the AR capabilities of devices.

“We’ve been talking for years about the possibility of having wearable augmented reality devices that will gain scale,” the Qualcomm CEO said on the occasion.

“Our goal is to inspire and empower others to collectively work to develop the metaverse future – a future that is grounded in trust and innovation,” added Rubén Caballero, corporate vice president Mixed Reality, Microsoft.

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