Qualcomm Unveils the Networking Pro A7 Elite Platform

[Nomad76]

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.

"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.



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[_JP_]

That NPU is totally not going to become a security vulnerability in a few years with unpatched routers' software.

 

[Vincero]

I was wondering who needs a router with not-really-'AI' functionality.... but then remembered Amazon eero exists and this is also the sort of product niche Google would go for.
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.

 

[Solidstate89]

Just what my home network has already needed; a bullshit generator.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

I was wondering who needs a router with not-really-'AI' functionality.... but then remembered Amazon eero exists and this is also the sort of product niche Google would go for.
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.

playing the opposite of devils advocate: Now companies can use the "AI bullshit" to inspect all the packets in your network to better steal your data.

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.}

 

[Caring1]

But it's not a modem.

 

[Vincero]

playing the opposite of devils advocate: Now companies can use the "AI bullshit" to inspect all the packets in your network to better steal your data.

and yes, this will become a huge vulnerability black hole when these devices become abandonware.

I didn't want to / feel the need to point out the obvious anti-consumer elements.

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.

But it's not a modem.

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.)

 

[TheLostSwede]

To all of you bitching about the NPU, routers have had those or similar features for at least a decade by now...
It just wasn't called ai...
Also, all your phones have one.

But it's not a modem.

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.

 

[_JP_]

To all of you bitching about the NPU, routers have had those or similar features for at least a decade by now...
It just wasn't called ai...
Also, all your phones have one.

Network Processing Unit, yes. Neural Processing Unit, no.
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".

 

[TheLostSwede]

Network Processing Unit, yes. Neural Processing Unit, no.
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".

Well, I for once is for government forcing the router manufacturers to offer no less than five years of firmware updates for routers, once a quarter is good enough, but all known security patches required should have to applied. Not talking new features or anything here, simply security patches.
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.

Qualcomm Hexagon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

Exacty what JP said, NPU is a network processor, not the npu they're talking about now that is neural bs.

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

 

[Vincero]

Well, I for once is for government forcing the router manufacturers to offer no less than five years of firmware updates for routers, once a quarter is good enough, but all known security patches required should have to applied. Not talking new features or anything here, simply security patches.
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.

You mean like back in the day when you could flash a seperate RIL ROM for the seperate GSM modem/CPU part of the SoC whilst using a different main firmware ROM for the OS.... that seems a lost art now and almost crazy to think that vendors and telco's actually provided these updates...

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 2016, most likely longer than that.

Qualcomm Hexagon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Heh, back when the function was to improve things like media handling, then eventually ISP for the cameras and maybe better AF/detection.... now it's fraken-morphed into something that can a) make pictures objectively worse by adding on-the-fly CPU cycle free fake bokeh (which still looks... well... fake), b) run other 'AI' snoopy stuff which some may find helpful, but not half as helpful as the vendor analytics, and c) just takes up transistors that I would rather have been used for another big/little core or maybe to support additional instruction set functions or improved decode/prediction/etc....

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'...

 

[TheLostSwede]

Exacty what JP said, NPU is a network processor, not the npu they're talking about now that is neural bs.

See above.

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

That's already being done on many WiFi 6 and later routers.

You mean like back in the day when you could flash a seperate RIL ROM for the seperate GSM modem/CPU part of the SoC whilst using a different main firmware ROM for the OS.... that seems a lost art now and almost crazy to think that vendors and telco's actually provided these updates...

Can't say I've ever done any of that...

Heh, back when the function was to improve things like media handling, then eventually ISP for the cameras and maybe better AF/detection.... now it's fraken-morphed into something that can a) make pictures objectively worse by adding on-the-fly CPU cycle free fake bokeh (which still looks... well... fake), b) run other 'AI' snoopy stuff which some may find helpful, but not half as helpful as the vendor analytics, and c) just takes up transistors that I would rather have been used for another big/little core or maybe to support additional instruction set functions or improved decode/prediction/etc....

I'm not defending what it does or what it's intended use is, simply stating that it's not really a new thing, it's just been given the ai buzzword naming all of a sudden.
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.

 

[Vincero]

Can't say I've ever done any of that...

The (early) Windows Mobile (CE based) days.... it actually wasn't that bad a platform - quite tweakable if the vendor allowed for it and you had multiple different ROM you could play with...
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).

 

[TheLostSwede]

The (early) Windows Mobile (CE based) days.... it actually wasn't that bad a platform - quite tweakable if the vendor allowed for it and you had multiple different ROM you could play with...
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).

Way off topic, but M$ gave me one of these many moons ago.

Compaq Aero 1530 / 1550 | Device Specs | PhoneDB

Specs: 1999 Sep, Windows (mobile-class), NEC VR4111, 1998, 64 bit, single-core, 16 Kbyte I-Cache, 8 Kbyte D-Cache, 1024 Kbyte L2, 16 MiB RAM, 16 MiB ROM, 4 inch, 240x320, MSTN LCD display, IrDA 1.0, Supported GPS protocol(s): No

phonedb.net

 

[persondb]

Network Processing Unit, yes. Neural Processing Unit, no.
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".

Exacty what JP said, NPU is a network processor, not the npu they're talking about now that is neural bs.

In this case it is actually a Neural Processor Unit. Qualcomm and others had Network Accelerators and such for many many years before.
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.