India is now showing leadership in key tech areas: Qualcomm senior VP Dino Bekis

Dino Bekis, senior VP for wearables and personal AI at Qualcomm, was in India recently. In an exclusive conversation with India Today Tech, he talks about his company's involvement in the next-gen AI devices, voice as interface for AI, and the positive changes he is seeing in the Indian tech sector.

In Short

• Qualcomm is actively investing in next-gen AI devices
• Qualcomm VP Dino Bekis says voice is the perfect interface for AI
• Bekis frequently visits India, he is seeing positive changes in tech sector here

Dino Bekis, the senior vice president and general manager of wearables and personal AI at Qualcomm, is a familiar face for his India team. That is because he frequently visits India, and has been doing so for close to 20 years. Recently when India Today Tech caught up with Bekis on the sidelines of the Snapdragon For India event, the first thing he wanted to highlight was the changes he was seeing in the country. According to him, two decades ago the tech ecosystem in India was about big and monolithic companies. Now, it is full of a different kind of energy, the one that is enterprising and is not shy about taking a shot at globally new technologies.

“For me, it has gone from being a country focussed on infrastructure and maybe industrial projects to having leadership in some of these new areas, like personal AI,” Bekis told India Today Tech.

He said the tech sector in India always had a well-educated workforce, but now it was also “applying itself towards solving big problems in the country and showing leadership in the world in some of these new technology areas.”

Bekis noted, “I feel that that's a very positive transition.”

Bekis was in Delhi recently as part of the leadership team that was attending Qualcomm’s Snapdragon For India event. At the event, the company announced new Snapdragon processors — part of Series 4 and Series 6 — that have been specifically tuned to offer the best experience in India conditions. The company also elaborated on how it was working across technologies, from network to voice, to make devices better.

Voice and AI go together

It is the voice technology that particularly interests Bekis. He believes that as the world moves towards integrating more AI in devices, and as companies search for gadgets that can replace or accompany the smartphone in our digital lives, voice will become the de-facto mode of interface.

“I believe that's the case,” Bekis said when asked if voice would be needed as an interface if AI and AI-powered devices were to realise their full potential.

The idea is that first we got the computer mouse. Next came the touchscreen. And after the touchscreen, we are increasingly moving to voice as the medium through which we will control our devices.

“Voice is the most natural way we communicate. And, for AI to realise its full potential, for us to feel more comfortable (with it), I think it's gonna have to be something that removes as much friction as possible,” says Bekis. “I think natural language speech is, at least right now, the most frictionless medium.”

That is until we get the ability to control our devices by just thinking. Then, says Bekis, “voice becomes less important, but right now, voice is mandatory as an interface (for AI).”

AI-first gadgets are coming within months

Speaking of AI devices, Bekis says Qualcomm is already working with a number of companies on gadgets that would be completely centred around AI.

In recent weeks, there are reports of OpenAI working on several AI-first gadgets, such as an augmented earphone as well as a pendant, that will be powered by something like ChatGPT. Bekis refuses to confirm or deny whether Qualcomm is part of the OpenAI project to create these futuristic devices. But he says that work is underway and it is safe to assume that Qualcomm is part of it, not just in such efforts happening in Silicon Valley but also in China.

Bekis says “we are extremely active” in plans to create AI-first devices. “If you're hearing about any of these devices, it probably has Qualcomm inside. There's no way that any of these industry rumours you've heard where Qualcomm isn't part of that,” he says. “And I don't think it's just because of the hardware. It's because we've been investing in wearable technology (for years). We were at the forefront of what wearables were before wearables were a thing.”

While no company has publicly talked about a definitive launch timeline for such AI devices, they are coming soon. How soon? Bekis too will not put a date on it, but he says that by the end of this year or early next year we will see some of these devices. “Over the next maybe six to 12 months, I think you're gonna start seeing some products actually hit the market. And Qualcomm will be part of that,” he says.

- Ends