Qualcomm has launched a software developers kit (SDK) for its Neural Processing Engine (NPE), a system for running machine learning functions on its Snapdragon processors, and has signed Facebook up as an early adopter. Machine learning and AI-based technologies are among the growth areas which Qualcomm has identified to diversify its business model amidst smartphone market slowdown, a string of legal attacks, and a prolonged approvals process for its proposed takeover of NXP. While NXP will help it expand in automotive and IoT spaces, Qualcomm is also augmenting existing platforms, as the NPE SDK indicates. The SDK is compatible with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 and 800 system-on-chip families for mid- and high-tier mobile devices. It allows developers to pick the preferred…