Replay: Hugo Swart (Qualcomm) on Qualcomm’s Plan to Accelerate VR & AR Growth

Preamble

Efficient computing is critical for AR smartglasses, and Qualcomm recently announced another update to their chipsets dedicated to AR & VR. Earlier in 2019, Hugo Swart, Head of XR at Qualcomm, joined the podcast to share a look at Qualcomm's strategy. Here's the episode in its entirety.

The Guest

Hugo Swart is a senior director of product management and serves as the Head of XR for Qualcomm Technologies. He is responsible for overseeing all of the AR & VR-related business, including product planning, roadmap, strategy, partnerships, and customer development. He’s helped to spearhead standalone VR devices - those that aren’t attached to a PC - by creating the industry’s first reference design in 2016 at Qualcomm. He’s really built Qualcomm’s XR business from ground-up.

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Hugo Swart

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Qualcomm

He joined the company back in 2003 as a technical marketing manager in charge of promoting wireless data technologies to operators worldwide, and he has led several successful R&D projects over the years.

Prior to joining Qualcomm, Swart served as sales engineer for Lucent Technologies and Telecom Italia. Swart received his bachelor’s (1999) and Master of Science (2004) degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Campinas, Brazil. In addition, he received a Master of Business Administration (2008) from San Diego State University.

The Conversation

In this conversation, Hugo lays out his vision for where VR and AR devices are going as well as Qualcomm’s strategy for getting us there.

Hugo breaks down some of the configurations for smartglasses (such as all-in-one vs separate compute pack) and explains why they are they way they are.

Hugo believes that smartglasses will be as or more transformative than mobile or web, with sales volumes rivaling those of smartphones.

Jason McDowallAR smartglasses, consumer, VR, enterprise, hardware