Qualcomm’s new chipset for Wi-Fi 7 routers grants connected devices AI smarts

Qualcomm’s business is prominently focused on designing smartphone system-on-chip processors that can handle generative AI. Therefore, it stands to reason that they can add the same capabilities to other networking platforms.

Today (8 October 2024), Qualcomm announced the new Networking Pro A7 Elite, a Wi-Fi processing platform with an AI co-processor. This platform offers up to Wi-Fi 7 connectivity of up to 33Gbps, alongside up to 40 TOPS of NPU processing (INT8) via its included Qualcomm Hexagon NPU (yes, that’s the same NPU used inside the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3).

This means that home or enterprise Wi-Fi 7 routers using the Qualcomm Networking Pro A7 Elite platform can deploy Edge AI use cases, and it centralises generative AI processing and capabilities on the device equipped with Networking Pro A7 Elite.

In turn, devices connected to the router “unlock” AI processing power, even for those without AI smarts. 

Qualcomm’s announcement gave the example of using Networking Pro A7 Elite for security, energy management, automation, and health monitoring scenarios. The information is processed at the Wi-Fi gateway, and both AI and legacy devices can rely on the access point to provide processing on their behalf.

“Wi-Fi access points are the gateways to the internet and are at the heart of connected experiences within the home. This transformation bridges the gap between cloud AI and on-device AI, paving the way for a new stage of innovation in smart home devices, their user interfaces, integration, and applications. This evolution also opens up new business models for service providers, marking a significant milestone in the advancement of home networking technology,” said Phil Solis, Research Director at IDC.

Qualcomm said that the new Wi-Fi processor will be demonstrated at Expo Hall Stand A13 during the Network X event in Paris from 8 to 10 October 2024. While Qualcomm has not announced the manufacturers developing Wi-Fi products, the company has collected feedback from its favourite customers, including big names like Cisco, Netgear, Nokia, EE, and T-Mobile.

For reference, Qualcomm’s Networking Pro series Wi-Fi platforms were created in 2019. The latest release was preceded by Networking Pro A7, which also has up to 33Gbps peak aggregate capacity and none of the edge AI functionality.

More about the Networking Pro A7 Elite can be found here.

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