Meta’s chip deal with Qualcomm may reflect its unrealized VR ambitions

Qualcomm and Meta have signed a multi-year settlement promising to workforce up on customized variations of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR chips for the “future roadmap of Quest merchandise” and “different gadgets,” as Mark Zuckerberg put it.

Whereas, in some methods, the transfer is enterprise as regular — the Quest 2 is powered by the Snapdragon XR2 chipset — it might present perception into Meta’s compromises because it faces declines in income and tries to maintain the spiraling bills of Mark’s metaverse mission in test.

What the Qualcomm deal exhibits is that Meta’s upcoming headsets, which reportedly embody a high-end headset codenamed Cambria and, later, new variations of its cheaper Quest headset, will not run on fully personalized Meta-designed silicon.

That is regardless of competing corporations like Apple, Amazon, and Google making product choices round customized chip designs like M2, Graviton3, and Tensor — and the truth that Meta’s had a workforce devoted to doing the identical since 2018. This press launch says the chips will likely be “personalized” for Meta’s wants. Nonetheless, we do not know the way a lot area that may put between its “premium” gadgets and different producers’ {hardware} that hews intently to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR reference designs.

In April, The Verge reported that Meta workers have been working with semiconductor fabs — the businesses that really produce the bodily chips — to make customized chips for its as-of-yet unannounced AR headset. That very same month, The Info reported that a few of Meta’s efforts to create customized chips have been hitting roadblocks, pushing it to make use of a Qualcomm chip for its second-gen Ray-Bay sensible glasses as an alternative of its personal silicon.

Qualcomm

Tyler Yee, a Meta spokesperson, mentioned that the corporate would not focus on particulars about how its roadmap has advanced and would not touch upon any particular plans it might have had for customized chips for Quest merchandise. Nevertheless, Yee did share an announcement on the corporate’s “basic strategy to customized silicon,” saying that Meta would not consider in a “one-size-fits-all strategy” for the tech powering its future gadgets.

“There may very well be conditions the place we use off-the-shelf silicon or work with trade companions on customizations, whereas additionally exploring our personal novel silicon options. There may be eventualities the place we use each accomplice and customized options in the identical product,” he mentioned. “It’s all about doing what is required to create the very best metaverse experiences doable.”

The backdrop to all this can be a firm going through a number of stress. Meta’s income has dipped for the primary time (thanks partially to Apple’s adjustments to how apps are allowed to trace customers), and Zuckerberg explicitly said plans to show up the warmth on workers whereas admitting, “I feel a few of you may simply say that this place is not for you. And that self-selection is okay with me.” On the identical time, he is making a large wager on the metaverse — the corporate is spending, and dropping, billions of {dollars} per 12 months on the mission, which incorporates AR and VR headsets.

It is a high-stakes sport that Meta would presumably need to play as near the chest as doable. However for now, it appears the {hardware} prospects entry Zuckerberg’s Metaverse with (if they are going to do this in any respect, as an alternative of simply taking part in Beat Saber) will stay powered by any person else’s chips.