Qualcomm recently announced the launch of its first-ever Snapdragon Experience Zone in India in partnership with Croma, a leading consumer electronics retail chain. Located at Croma Store in Juhu, Mumbai, it is part of the company’s wider plans of introducing more Snapdragon Experience Zones across the country. With this collaboration, visitors can experience showcased devices powered by Snapdragon SoCs and get a demonstration of their capabilities, including those powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
Croma’s Snapdragon Experience Zone
As per the company, the Snapdragon Experience Zone showcases ecosystem products such as smartphones, PCs, wearables, and audio products powered by Qualcomm’s processors. The store includes staff that have been trained to provide demonstrations of the chip’s capabilities, including their on-device AI prowess.
Customers can interact with these devices, get a hands-on experience and also seek expert advice from the staff.
At launch, Savi Soin, President of Qualcomm India said, “This initiative allows customers to experience the transformative power of on-device AI, showcasing the cutting-edge capabilities of the Snapdragon ecosystem.”
The company has confirmed that it plans to launch more Experience Zones in India soon although plans about their proposed locations remain unknown. Notably, this announcement comes prior to the launch of the Snapdragon X CPUs in India today (February 24) in partnership with Asus at an event held in New Delhi.
Similar to their global counterparts, the Snapdragon X CPUs are likely to offer support for AI features, leveraging a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU). The platform is expected to be scalable across a wide range of thermal designs and form factors.
The company expects its new platform to power laptops priced under $600 (roughly Rs. 51,400) globally, and a similar strategy could also be adopted for the Indian markets. The event has been labelled “AI PCs for Everyone”, which suggests that the new processors could be targeted towards offering AI performance at an affordable price tag.
