Recently, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon sent a signal in an interview program called Fireside Alpha: several leading AI companies may be considering entering the smartphone market themselves. He revealed that one AI company has explicitly stated that it wants to run a large model with 100 billion parameters on a smartphone continuously by 2028, and is now looking for hardware that can support such ambition. Amon did not name the company, but emphasized that these demands show that AI companies are no longer satisfied with being behind-the-scenes suppliers; they want to step into the spotlight and take control of the most personal screen—smartphones.

Putting a 100-billion-parameter model into a device the size of a palm is far more than just about "whether the computing power is enough." Amon pointed out that, in addition to tackling the terrifying computing power requirements, power consumption and heat generation are the real obstacles—mobile phones have only so much battery and so little space for heat dissipation. Once the model runs at full capacity, both heat and power will quickly deplete. However, he believes that as chip performance improves and AI processing efficiency is optimized, scenarios where all advanced intelligent functions are completed locally on the terminal, without relying on the cloud, will become increasingly common. In other words, future smartphones may no longer simply pass questions to cloud-based large models, but instead carry a "brain" inside them that can hold conversations anytime.

The outside world has already identified the likely candidates, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. OpenAI previously announced a partnership with Jony Ive, Apple's former chief designer, to develop AI devices, and the reported forms include smart speakers with built-in cameras, although it has not confirmed whether it is building a smartphone. Meta's hardware presence extends to VR headsets and smart glasses, while Anthropic has not yet announced any consumer-oriented hardware plans. Regardless of who pulls the trigger first, Amon's remarks have brought a trend to the surface: when models are small enough to fit in a phone and powerful enough to run locally, a new wave of players who have never made phones before may soon enter the smartphone market.