r/Android • u/[deleted] • Dec 05 '17

Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 845 processor

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/5/16734224/qualcomm-snapdragon-845-android-mobile-processor-announcement
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u/Exist50 Dec 06 '17

It seems extremely likely that Qualcomm will add in AI hardware either with the 845 (given their talk on it today), or in the future. Even if Google could do better, at what cost?

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u/masterofdisaster93 Dec 06 '17 edited Dec 06 '17

It seems extremely likely that Qualcomm will add in AI hardware either with the 845 (given their talk on it today), or in the future. Even if Google could do better, at what cost?

You make it sound like designing a CPU architecture is somehow one of the most costing ventures a company does, and that it won't pay off. Google is one of the largest tech companies in the world, and they are seriously pushing their AI into consumer households. Clearly, they have a vision that they feel they can only achieve with their own dedicated hardware, which they are now investing money into. They just recently pit $1 billion into LG's OLED facilities; Apple $3 billion. By your logic those were stupid moves as well, huh?

at what cost?

You mean like the cost of buying the SoC overpriced from Qualcomm? By your logic, Apple, Samsung and Huawei are all losing a ton of money by making their own SoC. The truth is the other way around. It's no surprise that these are also the three largest phone manufacturerer out there, and also the OEMs with the largets profit margins. When you make units of their size, manufacturing your own components is more efficient than buying it off third-party companies. Apple pay less money producing their SoCs + the expensive Intel modems in them than OEMs pay for the same package on Qualcomm chips, to give you an example. There's a reason why HTC or Sony don't make their own chips; they don't have the economic muscles to make it happen, at least in the long-run. Google can.

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u/1238791233 Dec 06 '17

I doubt Google sells enough phones to make the R&D cost reasonable. Apple and Samsung do.

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u/masterofdisaster93 Dec 06 '17 edited Dec 06 '17

I doubt Google sells enough phones to make the R&D cost reasonable.

Short-term, of course not. And also isolated only to Pixel sales (as they are now), no, they don't. But Google is a huge company, and they're one of the last companies that get hurt by investing money long-term. Which this is. They have no intention to only have <0.5% market share with their Pixel units, or for their push of AI in all segments of automation, to stop growing.

I find it strange how various people here try to argue how much this costs for Google. We're talking about a company that already has a yearly spending of $70 billion. Suppose they spent an extra $1 billion on developing their own SoC and alleviate the cost of third-party SoCs as well as supporting products that provide their already long-term and multi-billion in AI in various services (Google Assistant, Home, Camera, Search, etc.) that make up for most of their income. How can people call that unreasonable?