Qualcomm has unveiled its latest flagship system-on-chip (SoC), the Snapdragon 845, focusing on enhanced performance for ‘extended reality’ (XR) and for on-device artificial intelligence (AI), as well as a new Secure Processing Unit (SPU) for “vault-like” security features. The SoC is being linked to the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9, and Qualcomm will hope to reinforce its reputation of industry leading performance, as it battles to fend off Apple’s lawsuits and Broadcom’s hostile takeover attempts. To support its claims to be creating a full AI platform, the chip supplier also announced a strategic alliance with Chinese search engine Baidu, to create an AI voice solution based on the new Snapdragon combined with Baidu’s DuerOS conversational AI system. The technologies will be…