From Silicon to Street: How Qualcomm is Pushing India’s Automotive Landscape

Qualcomm hosted its first Snapdragon for India: Auto Day on Wednesday, showcasing a number of strategic collaborations within the automotive sector. Imagine if I inform you that the automobile you are in all probability driving has a Qualcomm chipset? That was information to me once I spoke with Qualcomm executives on the sidelines of Snapdragon for India: Auto Day in New Delhi. At the occasion, the chip-maker showcased numerous strategic collaborations with companions, like KPIT, an AI-powered Smart Chassis Platform with Integrated Vehicle Motion Control (IVMC). Of course, this is powered by Qualcomm, which acts as an enabler for such a tech stack.

Nakul Duggal, Group GM, Automotive and Industrial and Embedded IoT, Qualcomm, talked concerning the firm’s strategic deal with India, highlighting its vital engineering presence and innovation efforts. During his keynote, Duggal spoke concerning the shift from low-end to premium experiences in India, with a deal with AI by way of Digital Chassis. The occasion additionally highlighted Qualcomm’s partnerships with main automakers, together with Maruti Suzuki India Limited and Mahindra, showcasing superior applied sciences akin to autonomous braking and cybersecurity options.

Nakul Duggal, Group GM, Automotive and Industrial and Embedded IoT, Qualcomm, throughout keynote

Hisashi Takeuchi, Managing Director & CEO of Maruti Suzuki India Limited, mentioned how the collaboration with Qualcomm started 5 years in the past. He additionally revealed that the second-generation Baleno was the primary automobile from the corporate to utilise linked automobile options from Qualcomm, and he added that the upcoming e-Vitara EV will function Qualcomm expertise. The occasion additionally noticed the presence of Velusamy R, President – Automotive Business, M&M Limited and Managing Director, Mahindra Electric Automobile Limited.

Qualcomm is powering premium in-cabin experiences

Qualcomm’s Duggal mentioned the varied facets of how the corporate is enhancing premium in-cabin experiences, like a number of high-res shows on the entrance and rear with enhanced graphics assist, pure language understanding for intuitive voice management for car interactions, multimdal interfaces for a number of mechanisms for partaking the car, face recognition that may add an additional layer of safety and extremely personalised expertise for all occupants. He additionally mentioned key facets, akin to driver monitoring, which retains drivers alert and conscious of their environment to improve security, in addition to a surveillance system that includes surround-view cameras, including contextual consciousness to improve security and safety additional.

Qualcomm says that over 350 million automobiles globally are powered by Snapdragon Digital Chassis

The premium in-cabin expertise may even embody a premium sound expertise with zonal audio with lively noise and echo cancellation, machine studying and Edge AI for consumer and contextual knowledge to inform larger ranges of personalisation.

Duggal gave an instance of how Qualcomm has been in automotive for 20+ years, “We started our journey with OnStar, with General Motors back in 2002, when the US was moving from analogue to digital, we worked with GM to get them to use CDMA, which was a technology that we innovated. And the history of the company was actually in trucking telematics. Back in the late 80s, we had actually created a system called Omni Tracks, which was solely for long-distance trucking in the US and Mexico and eventually in Europe.”

Qualcomm retains two-wheelers in focus as properly with providers like 4G/ 5G/ GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, close by charging station notifications, car service alerts and extra

V2X is a vital part, and adoption in India is key

Duggal additionally touched upon the worldwide name to motion for street accidents. He claimed that round 1.2 million fatalities globally might be prevented every year by adopting superior vehicle-to-everything (V2X) expertise. In his keynote, he defined that V2X expertise helps direct, low-latency communication between automobiles (V2V), roadside infrastructure (V2I) and weak street customers (V2VRU). The tech can assist with collision avoidance security programs, in addition to security alerts to cyclists and pedestrians, ahead collision avoidance, and street security hazard warnings.

Qualcomm’s India focus contains pushing digital cockpits and sensible mobility

Duggal additionally talked about how the Autotalks acquisition by Qualcomm introduced international, production-ready V2X options.

He additionally touched upon the truth that India has been an engineering hub for Qualcomm for greater than 10 years, with the crew right here supporting your entire chipset and software program roadmap, take a look at engineering, telematics, cockpit, ADAS, two-wheelers, linked providers, international buyer engineering, and India prospects are supported domestically. There are centres in Hyderabad, Delhi NCR, Chennai, and Bangalore.

Qualcomm desires to make India a worldwide chief in linked security

The most necessary section of the occasion was when Qualcomm’s Nakul Duggal emphasised the necessity for the federal government and trade to align to speed up V2X deployment at scale, aiming to cut back street accidents and fatalities within the nation considerably.

Qualcomm affords telematics, digital cockpit, ADAS, linked two-wheelers, and linked providers

This will contain near-term authorities regulatory certainty and supportive coverage, akin to introducing a life-saving security spectrum without spending a dime by delicensing the 5875-5925MHz band on the earliest for V2X deployment, in addition to the inclusion of V2X in Bharat NCAP 2.0, which is scheduled to be applied in 2027. Qualcomm additionally pitches to incentivise two-wheelers to add V2X, making them seen to four-wheelers and vehicles, alongside the deployment of V2X roadside items at crash hotspots, akin to highways.

He additionally mentioned how AI-powered automated crash response may be extremely environment friendly, like integrating infotainment and telematics for enhanced security.