Over the years, Android has been slowly spreading its influence. Originally confined to smartphones, it then spread to embedded devices and tablets. Now the little green robot seems ready to take on the likes of Chromebook, and perhaps even Linux and Windows as hints of new Android-powered PCs leak out during the Snapdragon Summit.
Though generally associated with the mobile and embedded market, Qualcomm has been making moves towards the PC market recently with its Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus introduced in 2024. Now the company seems to be continuing its collaboration with Google to bring Android to the PC.
During a keynote speech at the Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm CEO, Cristiano Amon, was joined by Google’s Senior Vice President of Devices and Services, Rick Osterloh, to discuss the future of computing. During this talk, several hints were dropped that indicate an intention to build a version of Android that can function as a PC operating system.
Osterloh spoke of the difficulty of getting PCs and smartphones to communicate, since they use very different operating systems, before going on to say that they had a plan to overcome this: “We are building together a common technical foundation for our products on PCs and desktop computing systems.”
Amon seemed to confirm the existence of this unified Android OS, saying: “I’ve seen it, it is incredible. It delivers on the vision of convergence of mobile and PC. I cannot wait to have one.”
Since this is a Qualcomm summit, it seems likely that this project will be powered by a Snapdragon processor. It is unknown what segment of the market this will target, but this could be a potential successor to the Chromebook platform, with the potential to expand further into areas such as handheld gaming.
Unfortunately, Qualcomm and Google remained cagey about future plans for this unified Android OS and what else the future might hold for this collaboration.
