The Chinese branch of smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm has joined forces with internet services company Tencent to build an “innovation center” in China focused on accelerating R&D for next-gen virtual and augmented reality systems in mobile devices.
China is quickly growing into one of the most promising VR markets. As The Economist reported, Shanghai has become a VR hub and Goldman Sachs estimates the Chinese VR market will be worth $60 billion by 2025 due to the rapid adoption of the tech by businesses.
Zhiming Nie, Tencent’s general manager of interactive entertainment R&D, said in a statement the new innovation center will help develop better products for Chinese gamers.
“This will provide excellent gaming experiences and superior services to meet the high requirements of Chinese consumers,” Nie said.
Tencent’s investments in VR attracted brokers and carried their shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to an all-time high in September, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.
Adrian Ong, VP of business development at Qualcomm China, said the partnership and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 series chip will only continue to improve VR and AR on smartphones and tablets.
“The relationship between Tencent and Qualcomm Wireless Communication Technologies (China) Limited will help accelerate these new, mobile AR and VR gaming and entertainment experiences, as we utilize the best of both companies’ technologies and engineering expertise,” Ong said.
Qualcomm made inroads into VR earlier this year with its VR820 headset running on a Snapdragon 820 chip. The first Google Tango-enabled AR smartphone, the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, also runs on a Snapdragon 652 processor.
VRScout has reached out to Qualcomm and Tencent for more details on the center and we’ll update the post as they come.
