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Qualcomm (QCOM) Unveils World's First 5G Capable Drone Platform

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Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM - Free Report) recently launched the world’s first drone platform and reference design to offer 5G and AI-capabilities — the Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G Platform.

This new solution will help accelerate the development of commercial drones and unlock innovative possibilities for industries to adopt high-performance drone solutions. Built with enhanced autonomy and intelligence features, it offers powerful computing at low-power with AI, 5G and long-range Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

Powered by the Qualcomm QRB5165 processor, the Flight RB5 5G Platform builds upon the company’s latest IoT offerings. As a global leader in 5G proliferation, Qualcomm has played a crucial role in enabling 5G to scale and transform the robotics and drone industry.

The platform brings cutting-edge capabilities to the drone industry by combining complex technologies into one integrated drone system. This, in turn, will support evolving applications and new use cases in sectors like entertainment, emergency response and defense, among others.

The platform’s heterogeneous computing at ultra-low power consumption provides efficient inference at the edge for AI and ML, enabling fully autonomous drones. The breakthrough cameras allow premium image capabilities and performance.

With 5G and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, the platform enhances critical flying abilities beyond visual line-of-sight for safer flight. It also features a Qualcomm Secure Processing Unit to support modern drone demands for cybersecurity protections.

Qualcomm is working with Verizon (VZ - Free Report) to complete network testing of the platform for the latter’s 5G network. It expects the 5G millimeter-wave capable platform to be offered through the Verizon Thingspace Marketplace.

The Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G development kit is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Qualcomm is leading the 5G transition and is on track to deliver $10 billion of annual revenues across RF front-end, IoT and Automotive as the business continues to diversify. It is poised to benefit from the increasing demand for its solutions in the cloud economy.

Qualcomm’s shares have gained 28.5% in the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 26.2%.

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The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

A couple of other top-ranked stocks in the industry are Clearfield, Inc. (CLFD - Free Report) and InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC - Free Report) , both sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Clearfield delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 49%, on average.

InterDigital pulled off a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 536%, on average.

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