Qualcomm’s Cognitive ISP is the 2023 Edge AI and Vision Product of the Year Award Winner in the Cameras and Sensors category. The Cognitive ISP (within the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform) is the only ISP for smartphones that can apply the AI photo-editing technique called “Semantic Segmentation” in real-time.
Semantic Segmentation is like “Photoshop layers”, but handled completely within the ISP. It will turn great photos into spectacular photos. Since it’s real-time, it’s running while you’re capturing photos and videos – or even before. You can see objects in the viewfinder being enhanced as you’re getting ready to shoot. A real-time Segmentation Filter is groundbreaking. This means the camera is truly contextually aware of what it’s seeing. Qualcomm achieved this by building a physical bridge between the ISP and the DSP – it’s called “Hexagon Direct Link”. The DSP runs Semantic Segmentation neural networks in real-time. Thanks to Hexagon Direct Link, the DSP and the ISP can operate simultaneously. The ISP captures images and the DSP assigns context to every image in real-time.
“On behalf of Qualcomm’s entire camera and AI engineering teams, I would like to thank the Edge AI and Vision Alliance for awarding the Qualcomm Cognitive ISP the 2023 Best Edge AI and Vision Product of the Year. The Cognitive ISP in the Snapdragon® 8 Gen 2 is a breakthrough for photo and video capture – it’s the world’s first ISP that can apply AI photo and video editing techniques based upon Semantic Segmentation in real-time. We’re so excited to be recognized and already see many developers and OEMs harnessing the Cognitive ISP to create next-generation camera experiences.”
Judd Heape, VP of Product Management for Camera, Video and Computer Vision, Qualcomm
For more than 30 years, Qualcomm has served as the essential accelerator of wireless technologies and the ever-growing mobile ecosystem. Now our inventions are set to transform other industries by bringing connectivity, machine vision and intelligence to billions of machines and objects—from mobile devices, connected cars and homes, to connected cameras, robotics, drones, and entire cities—catalyzing the IoT.
This award was presented at the 2023 Edge AI and Vision Product of the Year Awards Ceremony; the program is organized by the Edge AI and Vision Alliance. The Edge AI and Vision Product of the Year Awards celebrate the innovation and achievement of the industry’s leading companies that are enabling and developing products incorporating edge AI and computer vision technologies.
