February 10, 2022 – Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. has today announced that it has opened extended reality (XR) Labs in Europe. The company’s new XR Labs will focus activities on XR R&D, engineering and key technology development areas such as advanced hand tracking and gesture control, 3D Mapping and SLAM/Localization services, multi-user experiences, and image recognition. Also, XR SDKs providing access to foundational XR technology including object and geo-tracking.
According to the company, the new labs in Europe build on Qualcomm Technologies’ commitment to make XR accessible to the masses and will be located across six cities in Europe initially, with the intention to add more in the future. Qualcomm stated that its goal is to help design lightweight, sleek headworn glasses and make innovative technology available for developers through its Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform.
Enrico Salvatori, Senior Vice President and President, Qualcomm Europe, Inc., said: “The opportunities for XR are significant. Combine that with Europe’s rich R&D and leadership in XR and we see the XR labs in Europe as being a big contributor to XR development worldwide. Brilliant minds are already working at speed to realize our vision of XR and bring a plethora of revolutionary experiences to everyone from consumers, healthcare and industrial. These labs join our already significant R&D presence in Europe.”
Hugo Swart, VP & GM of XR, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., added: “A new era of spatial computing is upon us and working behind the scenes on a new generation of experiences has been inspirational. Bringing XR to life for consumers and the enterprise is our mission and we are strengthening that commitment with the XR Labs in Europe. These labs will be the key to building out our XR portfolio which encompasses best-in-class platforms, software and innovative technology features and to make it available to all developers helping to build out the metaverse through Snapdragon Spaces. We cannot wait for everyone to see what is next.”
Sean Seaton, Senior Vice President Group Partnering and Devices, Deutsche Telekom, commented: “XR is the next stage of mobile computing and we are excited to see the opening of the Qualcomm XR R&D labs in Europe and we look forward to working closely with Qualcomm Technologies to bring our collective vision to reality. XR is incredibly exciting and stands to transform the way we work and live. 5G and future network innovations will empower experiences we could not have even imagined.”
Qualcomm noted that its XR ecosystem strategy is to help lead the XR revolution with optimized hardware powered by Snapdragon platforms, software, frameworks, tools, and broad OS support, adding that its innovations within mobile and XR devices are enabling technology and content leaders to deliver breakthrough immersive XR experiences.
With the opening of its new XR Labs in Europe, Qualcomm expects to be well positioned to enable growth in breakthrough technologies and the industry’s talent pool in order to support the XR ecosystem with the foundational technology needed to help build the metaverse.
For more information on Qualcomm and its efforts to accelerate the adoption of immersive technologies, please visit the company’s website.
Image credit: Qualcomm
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.