Qualcomm Celebrates 40 Years as an American Innovator
The company hosted a 40th anniversary celebration to showcase how its technological innovations have shaped the world
Written by Nate Tibbits
Over the last few decades, we have witnessed an incredible technological revolution. The way we interact with each other and the world around us has been transformed by groundbreaking advances in wireless communications, improving the quality of people’s lives. In less than a generation’s time, the mobile phone has gone from a device designed primarily for making voice calls, to a ubiquitously connected computer that fits in the palm of your hand. And through its relentless pursuit of innovation, Qualcomm has played an indispensable role in driving many of the monumental changes we have seen in wireless technology since the dawn of the mobile era.
On Wednesday, we kicked off the celebration of our 40th anniversary with a special event at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. This celebration, led by Qualcomm Incorporated President and CEO Cristiano Amon, took place in the rotunda below the “Cellphone: Unseen Connections” exhibit, which showcases the profound impact of mobile technology on our world. It was a proud evening where we reflected on our achievements and shared the remarkable journey that has brought us to this milestone.
“What is unique about this company is it's a company that's been founded on a deep commitment to R&D and technology, and trying to solve some of the world’s biggest problems,” said Amon, who went on to recount how our foundations in cellular technology have expanded and evolved into us enabling intelligent computing beyond mobile phones to areas such as automotive, computers, Internet of Things (IoT) and AI. “We could not be more excited about the roadmap for technology and the potential for companies in America to continue to innovate and continue to drive this innovation economy, at the same time transforming the world through our history.”
Since our founding in 1985, Qualcomm has played a central role in furthering American technology leadership on the world stage. To date, we have invested over $100 billion in R&D, representing nearly 20% of our annual revenue. That extraordinary investment in innovation is what has allowed Qualcomm to truly move the wireless industry forward: first through successfully enabling the mobile phone to scale into the hands of everyday consumers, then by integrating essential functions into the mobile phone — such as GPS and location services for public safety, plus various consumer electronic features like your music player and camera — and finally by transforming the mobile phone into a bona fide mobile computer.
Leveraging a legacy of breakthroughs
Qualcomm’s journey began in 1985 with a team of visionary engineers that defied convention with their groundbreaking work in CDMA, a radio transmission technology that set the stage for the mobile revolution. That breakthrough laid the groundwork for 4G — which truly brought the internet to the smartphone — and then 5G, which led to everything from lightning-fast streaming to 4K-quality video chats.
But more recently, our work has extended beyond just radio technology. Over the last several years, we have expanded in a number of areas, from our powerful and energy-efficient Snapdragon platforms that drive innovation in smartphones, PCs, cars and XR, to our new Qualcomm Dragonwing platforms, which are enabling the digital transformation of industrial and embedded IoT.
And as we look to the future, we know that AI is changing everything — from smarter, more personalized and responsive AI agents, to devices powerful enough to handle AI tasks themselves. Once again, we’re pushing the boundaries of what technology can do, with an eye toward changing the way we interact with each other, and the way in which we interact with the devices that connect us all.
Our solutions are transforming not just personal devices, but entire industries — from automotive to energy, and retail to manufacturing. To that end, at our 40th anniversary celebration, we were delighted to showcase some of the exciting new technological innovations that we have recently been driving. These demos included a Copilot+ laptop powered by our Snapdragon X Elite processor, which illustrated how an AI-enhanced digital assistant can save you hours of productivity by proactively helping you with daily tasks. Ray-Ban Meta glasses were on hand to show off how XR can serve as a new interface for AI, with built-in cameras and multimodal AI giving your digital assistant the ability to “see” what you see. Guests, meanwhile, were entertained by a DJ leveraging AI to mix music for the event.
These incredible demos of our technology, alongside others that highlighted the location-tracking Qualcomm Aware solution and Snapdragon Digital Chassis for the cars of tomorrow, represent just the beginning of the AI revolution. They also offered an exciting glimpse into the kinds of innovations we have in store for the next 40 years and beyond — innovations that will help uphold American technology leadership for decades to come by continuing to bring intelligent computing everywhere.
