Monday, October 7th 2024
Qualcomm Unveils the Networking Pro A7 Elite Platform
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a global leader in wireless technology innovation, today announced the launch of the Qualcomm Networking Pro A7 Elite, a groundbreaking wireless networking platform set to transform how people will experience their networks with edge AI integration. Leveraging an AI co-processor with 40 TOPS of NPU processing power, the platform delivers elevated Wi-Fi 7 connectivity and networking performance, while also equipping connected devices with powerful and centralized generative AI processing capabilities.
This transformative integration of computing power into the network unlocks opportunities for operators and enterprises to deploy innovative applications and services in areas such as security and surveillance, energy management and automation, personalized virtual assistants, aging in place and health monitoring among others. Edge AI can enhance privacy by processing sensitive information on the gateway, while enabling personalization through contextualized understanding of the environment and immediacy through near real-time responses. This approach unlocks the power of advanced AI for more devices, even legacy ones, enabling a more reliable and harmonized user experience across connected devices.
This new era of AI networking for Wi-Fi routers, mesh systems, broadband gateways, and access points, fueled by the Qualcomm Networking Pro A7 Elite, is already garnering global industry support.
Source:
Qualcomm
This transformative integration of computing power into the network unlocks opportunities for operators and enterprises to deploy innovative applications and services in areas such as security and surveillance, energy management and automation, personalized virtual assistants, aging in place and health monitoring among others. Edge AI can enhance privacy by processing sensitive information on the gateway, while enabling personalization through contextualized understanding of the environment and immediacy through near real-time responses. This approach unlocks the power of advanced AI for more devices, even legacy ones, enabling a more reliable and harmonized user experience across connected devices.
"With the Networking Pro A7 Elite, we proudly launch the AI networking era, a continuation of our long focus on the most valuable applications and use cases for our customers and their users," said Ganesh Swaminathan, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Infrastructure and Networking, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "The Networking Pro A7 Elite integrates key elements - from broadband to antenna - including 10G Fiber, 5G, Ethernet, RF-Front End modules, and filters into one integrated platform. This class of gateways and routers brings transformative AI processing capabilities to not only manage the modern demands of the most dynamic Wi-Fi 7 networks, but also give rise to a new generation of generative AI-powered services that can be more seamless, responsive, personalized, and privacy-rich."The platform, designed with developers and ecosystem partners in mind, accelerates market entry and fosters AI-enhanced application development through access to the Qualcomm AI Hub where developers can create new applications and experiences, highlighting Qualcomm Technologies' dedication to tech innovation and excellence.
This new era of AI networking for Wi-Fi routers, mesh systems, broadband gateways, and access points, fueled by the Qualcomm Networking Pro A7 Elite, is already garnering global industry support.
"Wi-Fi access points are the gateways to the internet and are at the heart of connected experiences within the home," said Phil Solis, Research Director at IDC. "It is exciting to see Wi-Fi gateways, like the Qualcomm Networking Pro A7 Elite platform, evolving into AI edge platforms. 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."The Qualcomm Networking Pro A7 Series is currently sampling and will be featured by Qualcomm Technologies at Network X in Paris from October 8-10, where we will be showcasing our latest innovations in networking and connectivity, including Edge AI applications.
15 Comments on Qualcomm Unveils the Networking Pro A7 Elite Platform
Not sure how an NPU improves the 'user interface' apart from maybe helping with voice stuff but that is sort of 'bypassing' the old UI.
Playing devils advocate one potential use could actually be better / more effective packet inspection to better capture malware... bet it won't be used for that.
and yes, this will become a huge vulnerability black hole when these devices become abandonware.
No network gear needs AI bullshit of any kind(save for enterprise border devices), even less for consumers, these things need to be as barebones as possible, stable and able to run for 10+ years unattended. The best netwrok gear is the one you don't even know it's there.}
Legitimate device / security companies might be able to find a use for this - arguably the ubiquiti / netgear's / d-link / etc., of the world could potentially use the additional NPU features for things such as boosting signal handling, noise / jamming handling and protection around an AP, etc., although they all have a history of "ooops, security flaw... it's fixed in the update... to our product line - go buy it"
But yeah, just as easily it can be used for on the down-low snooping and aggregation of user activity / data, etc., and basically apply advanced packet inspection to root out certain types of traffic - additional processing is great for making MITM attacks more likely to work, etc.It doesn't need to be if it's directly handling the routed IP and is the gateway device, that's ignoring using the RFFE block as an external IP source. How it gets it can be via Ethernet link or maybe another IO link not shown in the diagram but likely to be there (so it can be linked to a Qualcomm modem IC, etc.)
It just wasn't called ai...
Also, all your phones have one.The developed world doesn't need modems. Sorry your government went with NBN instead of proper broadband.
Also, that's what the XGS-PON interface can be used for, a fibre service that again doesn't need a modem.
Co-processors have been widely used, also yes.
The issue is that a phone will be tossed once it's unsupported, a router could go for years until that happens.
The concern coming from me is the usual 'Rushed-Buzzword-Feature-to-the-Market' (or 'RBFttM', which is something I just made-up but feel free to use it at will), that I usually see with SOHO Routers and it is another situation of half-baked and slinged-to-the-wall-to-see-if-it-sticks feature that doesn't really add value, and worse becomes unpatched as soon as the model goes out of the warranty period (assuming a D-1 buy).
6~9 years later, those SoCs are still being used and then there's a very bad CVE being published, with the manufacturer saying "whatever, buy new".
It's doable and it's not that time consuming for the companies in question. I mean, I worked for a router manufacturer that released one to two firmware updates a month, most of those with new features or feature improvements. Sadly that company is largely dead by now, as the owner lost faith in what he as doing.
As for the NPU, they used to be called a bunch of other things, even if the functionality was more limited, but it all started with fuzzy logic, which is apparently ai now as well... In general it was a DSP of some kind, that then got fancier and fancier names and Qualcomm has had DSPs in all of their since at least 2006, most likely even longer than that. Qualcomm's router SoCs have had them since at least 2014, most likely longer than that. Yes, nowhere near as powerful as in recent chips, but still present.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualcomm_Hexagon
The IPQ8064 is from 2014 and has dual DPS', although they seem to be called VeNum, not Hexagon. In addition to that, the software for the NSS as it's called here or the various network accelerators provided by the router SoC makers, are always a binary blob that the router makers has zero insight into or access to make any changes to.
And yes, it could be used for real radio management and interference mitigation(like for example changing the radio channels in realtime without a reboot with fast transition for no drops) but i doubt manufacturers will be smart enough for that
I will concede some of the video corrective capabilities that NPUs can provide though are quite good.... a shame they'll eventually be morphed into also automatically then doctoring/messing with it in some way as a 'feature'...
As such, it's about a decade too late to get angry at having these features in your device, as it's simply a new, more advanced version of something that has been a part of these chips for a long time.
Whilst obviously not having anywhere near the same level of MS dev resources being spent on it, there was some really clever features baked in to it by the time MS killed it off for Windows Phone, except for the interface.
Due to HTC also doing early Android devices, there was somewhat similar ROM shenanigans but that died off quickly as OTA became the norm (and no doubt some functions got absorbed into the linux kernel).
phonedb.net/index.php?m=device&id=44&c=compaq_aero_1530__1550
Those are not measured in TOPs.
And it also explicitly put out as 'Hexagon NPU'. Hexagon is only used for their DSPs that got extended into NPUs.
Supposedly, AI stuff like better QoS should already be integrated into the network accelerator block instead of putting it into a different block.