Google is ditching Qualcomm for its flagship line of Pixel smartphones

Google is dropping Qualcomm chipsets from its flagship Pixel phones, striking out on its lonesome to develop smartphone processors. Qualcomm is the no. 2 player in the smartphone chipset market, accounting for 29% of market share in Q1 2021.

The decision to take over this process follows other big-name companies doing the same, either due to computing limitations (Google’s rationale) or the ongoing chip shortage. For example, Apple ditched Intel last year after 15 years, opting instead to use its Arm-produced M1 chip in MacBooks.

• Google had a hold on just ~0.3% of the smartphone market share, as of Q1 2021.

The soon-to-be-released Pixel 6 will be the first to use Tensor, the chip Google designed in-house that’s purpose-built for Pixel phones.

• Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted that the chip has been in the works for four years and called it Google’s “biggest innovation in Pixel to date.”
• The company says the new chips will boost Pixel's AI and machine-learning software, which is used for things like speech recognition and translation or song identification, as well as improved security, camera, and more.

Big picture: Google’s relationship with Qualcomm hasn’t fallen apart completely—it will still use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform for its low-end offerings. But this move indicates the lengths device-makers might have to go to in order to deliver cutting-edge features to consumers.—JM