Qualcomm at 40: Here’s How We Drove Five of the Biggest Tech Revolutions

Written by Sascha Segan

Qualcomm has pioneered many different breakthroughs over the last four decades, but our mission remains the same: Bringing those innovations to as many people as possible.

From our original foundational work on cellular capabilities with CDMA technology to how we’re positioning your favorite products to take advantage of the AI revolution, Qualcomm has — and continues to have — a major impact on your life.

Our drive to continuously innovate is marked by several critical missions we have embarked on over the last 40 years. A throughline of all those missions was to tap into technology to change the world.

And we’ve changed the world. A lot.

As we celebrate our 40^th anniversary, here are the five big missions we took on and the revolutions they sparked.

First mission: Mobility for all

Qualcomm’s first ambition was to ensure everybody had a cellphone, which in 1985 was an alien concept.

That solution came in the form of CDMA, short for Code Division Multiple Access, a radio technology that allowed more simultaneous calls on the network. This opened the door to everyone potentially getting a phone.

CDMA was a foundational building block for 3G wireless service and has been one of the core concepts in mobile networking ever since, from 4G to our current 5G and the next iteration of cellular technology, 6G.

“We saw early on that we had the ability to create technology, a technology called CDMA, that could make sure that everybody could have a phone with incredible quality and scale... that is how the company started, you know, the name of the company — Qualcomm — is quality communications. That's our very first mission,” said Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon during his recent keynote appearance at SXSW, where he took a lap on the history and missions the company has executed in the last 40 years.

Second mission: More than phone calls

Modern smartphones are versatile, like Swiss Army Knives, capable of handling everything from shooting Hollywood-caliber films to paying for goods like a credit card or playing immersive mobile games. 

But there was a time when your cellphone was just good for one thing: Making actual phone calls. 

Qualcomm saw the potential for more, starting with the PDQ-800, the first “smartphone” that combined a cellphone with the open, application-friendly OS used by Palm Pilots. 

We continued to push this vision of integrating various consumer devices. The days of carrying a dedicated digital camera for photos and an MP3 player or Walkman for music were becoming numbered. The vision culminated with the introduction of Snapdragon in 2007, which enabled the integration of many more capabilities through apps and services.   

“We take for granted that they’re part of the phone now,” Amon said. 

Third mission: Making your phone a computer

Qualcomm next tackled the challenge of creating a processor that was both fast and small enough to turn a cellphone into a true powerhouse, a smartphone. 

The result was the first CPU with processor speeds of 1 gigahertz — another breakthrough from Qualcomm. The Scorpion CPU debuted in 2006 and would later power our line of Snapdragon processors, which debuted a year later.

In that same year in 2006, Qualcomm also published patents based on the concept of an app store running on our BREW operating system, an example of how we were already looking forward, anticipating where smartphones would eventually go. 

“We’re so proud of having created some of the technologies and having partnered with so many companies to bring the smartphone revolution to life,” Amon said.  

One of the key factors that made smartphones so versatile and indispensable was the Snapdragon processor. Over time, it has become even more powerful and energy-efficient, culminating in our latest flagship, the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is found in many of the world’s top-tier smartphones.

Fourth mission: Expanding beyond phones 

It wasn’t enough for Snapdragon to be the brains behind just smartphones. We challenged ourselves to bring its power to a broader range of devices. 

“Can we get this incredible technology that got developed for mobile and can we take this to every other device?” Amon said. 

From laptops to cars, Snapdragon attributes — such as built-in connectivity, powerful processor or an energy-efficient architecture — could enhance a variety of devices. You can see this in action with the new line of Windows Copilot+ PCs utilizing the Snapdragon X Elite platform, or the Snapdragon Cockpit Elite and Snapdragon Ride Elite heading into future premium cars. 

This mission to expand our technology to more devices is ongoing, and we are committed to continuing this journey. 

Fifth mission: The AI-UI revolution

Our latest mission is to transform how we interact with our devices. The artificial intelligence revolution is here, and we believe generative AI will become the new user interface. This evolution began with the keyboard, progressed to the mouse, and then to touchscreens, with multimodal inputs now allowing you to speak or show objects to your AI digital assistant.

We are driving this transition with powerful processors that enable devices to leverage large language models (LLMs) directly on the device or tap into the cloud for more advanced inferences, maximizing the capabilities of AI assistants to respond to your queries.

“It’s the next big change on the horizon, and we’re only at the beginning of this transformation,” Amon said.

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