Sina Technology: According to reports, Facebook parent company Meta and Qualcomm today announced at the “Berlin Consumer Electronics Show”, the two sides have signed an agreement for Qualcomm to produce custom chipsets for Meta’s Quest virtual reality (VR) devices.
Meta and Qualcomm said in a statement that engineering and product teams from both companies will work together to produce the chips. The chips will be powered by Qualcomm’s “Snapdragon” platform.
The two companies did not disclose the financial details of the deal. But the partnership demonstrates Meta’s recognition and continued support of Qualcomm’s technology, even as Meta tries to develop its own custom chips for its planned range of virtual, augmented and mixed reality devices.
In response, Meta spokesman Tyler Yee said that while the chipset produced through the partnership is not exclusive to Meta, it is specifically optimized for the Quest’s system specifications. The partnership agreement covers only virtual reality devices, and Meta will continue to work on some new silicon solutions of its own, according to Tyler Yee.
In some cases, we will use off-the-shelf silicon or work with industry partners on customization; but at the same time, we are also exploring new silicon solutions of our own,” Taylor-Y said. So there may be situations where we use both partners and custom solutions in the same product. It’s all about creating the best ‘meta-universe’ experience possible.”
For years, Meta has relied on chips from Qualcomm for its virtual reality devices, including its latest Quest 2 headset device. According to research firm IDC, the Quest 2 holds about 90 percent of the virtual reality hardware market.
Meta has also invested heavily in technologies such as full-color pass-through glasses and augmented reality glasses in an attempt to bring CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of a “metaverse” to life.
