Following the recent news that Qualcomm has acquired augmented reality (AR) firm Wikitude;

Rupantar Guha, Associate Project Manager for the Thematic Team at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“The acquisition of Wikitude will reinforce Qualcomm’s leadership in the semiconductor segment of the AR market. Wikitude’s simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technologies will give Qualcomm a competitive edge over rivals like MediaTek and Samsung.

“Qualcomm will use Wikitude’s software development kits (SDKs) to allow Android app developers to create new geo-location AR experiences. SLAM has the potential to propel AR away from traditional marker-based approaches and towards more immersive location-based experiences. The development of indoor AR capabilities is mainly dependent on the maturity of SLAM, which Qualcomm is eyeing a lead in. MediaTek and Samsung, which also provide chipsets for Android smartphones, have yet to catch up with Qualcomm’s expanding AR capabilities.

“Qualcomm thrives across the AR industry value chain, with its offerings ranging from semiconductors, components, platforms, and AR headset designs for developers. Wikitude’s spatial computing technologies will improve Qualcomm’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips and fuel its initiative to commercialize extended reality (XR) devices over 5G networks.”