Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon revealed that leading artificial intelligence developers are asking chipmakers to prepare for smartphones capable of running 100-billion-parameter models locally by 2028. Amon envisions a massive industry shift from basic chatbots to always-on “agentic” AI systems that deeply integrate with operating systems to handle complex multi-step tasks on a user’s behalf. Operating these dense models locally is seen as crucial for maintaining personal privacy and leveraging unique on-device user context, app data, and sensor inputs without constant cloud dependency. While realizing this vision will require overcoming significant hardware obstacles like rising DRAM costs and strict power limitations, Amon remains bullish on mobile hardware growth. Emphasizing that smartphones represent the largest development platform ever created, Amon believes advanced artificial intelligence capabilities will spark the next major consumer upgrade cycle.

Full interview : Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon discusses the coming “battle of the agents” and how local device processing and on-device context will drive the next smartphone supercycle.