Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X75 modem brings support for 5G Advanced (for faster speeds and better coverage)

When wireless carriers began rolling out 5G networks they promised faster speeds, reduced congestion, and lower latency. The idea was to build on 4G and enable billions of internet connected devices including phones, computers, cars, and appliances to get online and talk to one another.

But so far it’s honestly pretty hard to see much difference between 4G and 5G in everyday usage… if you happen to be in an area that even has 5G access. That could change in the coming years thanks to the new 5G Advanced (Rel 18) standard, which promises even faster speeds, better coverage, and lower power consumption, among other things. Now Qualcomm has unveiled the first modem designed for 5G Advanced.

The new Snapdragon X75 5G modem will likely show up in next-gen flagship phones as well as other products including cars, wireless access points, and industrial products.

According to Qualcomm, it’s not only the first modem to support 5G Advanced, but it’s also the company’s first with “a dedicated hardware tensor accelerator” that enables AI optimizations for “better speeds, coverage, mobility, link robustness, and location accuracy.” Qualcomm says it brings a 2.5X improvement in AI performance over the company’s previous-gen solution.

Among other things, the Snapdragon X75 modem also supports:

• 10-carrier aggregation for mmWave
• 5x downlink carrier aggregation and FDD uplink MIMO for sub-6 GHz bands
• Qualcomm 5G PowerSave Gen 4 and Qualcomm RF Power Efficiency Suite for longer battery life
• Dual SIM support for simultaneous data from 5G and 4G networks

Qualcomm says the new solution is also its first to feature a converged mmWave and Sub-6 GHz transceiver, which takes up 25% less space, offers up to 20% improvement in power efficiency, and reduces costs by up to 40%.

Qualcomm says the Snapdragon X75 samples are available to hardware partners now and the first devices with the new modem should begin shipping in the second half of 2023.

But it might be a little longer before you can really take advantage of some of the modem’s features – the 5G Advanced standard won’t be released until next year and it could take some time after that for wireless carriers to actually build support for the new standard into their networks.

Qualcomm is also introducing a new Snapdragon X72 solution that includes many of the same upgrades as the X75… but it’s designed for more affordable systems and offers a little less peak performance:

press release