Niantic and Qualcomm join forces to create new AR glasses

Pokemon Go developer Niantic has partnered up with chip maker Qualcomm to create a new pair of augmented reality glasses. 

Detailing the move in a blog post, Niantic co-founder and CTO Phil Keslin explained the project will be a "multi-year joint collaboration on an integrated design spanning AR glasses reference hardware, software, and cloud components." 

The device will be optimized for the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 platform and Niantic Real World Platform, the latter of which is the core technology stack and AR-first SDK behind titles like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Ingress, and Pokemon Go. 

It’s only been a few weeks since Niantic established a new 'Creator Program' to fund and support developers working on AR projects, and the company eventually hopes to grant those creators access to its work-in-progress glasses.

"We're excited to also share that access to this new collaborative architecture between Niantic and Qualcomm Technologies is expected to be provided to creators via the Niantic Creator Program when available," reads a blog post. 

"We’re looking forward to helping move the entire AR industry forward as we work together with Qualcomm Technologies to define a true end-to-end architecture - inclusive of hardware, software, and cloud technologies."