At the Snapdragon Summit 2025, a compelling dialogue unfolded between Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon and Google’s Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Platforms & Devices. The conversation delved into the evolving landscape of desktop Android, a project that both companies are enthusiastically pursuing.
Shaping the Future of Computing
In a notable shift, Google announced in 2024 that ChromeOS would be transitioning to a foundation built on Android. This strategic move aims to merge ChromeOS and Android into a cohesive platform, with Google expressing its intent to enhance the ChromeOS experience by leveraging Android’s underlying technology.
Amon: What can you share about what we’re doing together for this new project at Google for personal computing?
Osterloh: Our strategy overall is to bring really, really rich computing experiences to every category. We talked about Autos, we talked about XR, we talked smartphones, of course. In the past, we’ve always had very different systems between what we are building on PCs and what we are building on smartphones.
Over the years, ChromeOS has increasingly integrated Android capabilities, allowing users to run apps from the Play Store through a virtual machine approach. However, the ambition now is to create a more seamless experience.
We’ve embarked on a project to combine that. We are building together a common technical foundation for our products on PCs and desktop computing systems. This is another way that we can leverage all of the great work we’re doing together on our AI stack, our full stack, bringing Gemini models, bringing the assistant, bringing all of our application and developer community into the PC domain.
Google has been clear about the significance of this “technical foundation,” which is rooted in Android. This initiative aims to accelerate AI innovation within ChromeOS, streamline engineering efforts, and enhance interoperability among devices such as phones and accessories with Chromebooks.
Osterloh: We are really excited about this, and I think this is another way in which Android is going to be able to serve everyone in every computing category.
Amon: I’ve seen it. It’s incredible. I think it delivers on the vision of conversions in mobile and PC. And I can’t wait to have one.
This collaboration presents Qualcomm with a fresh operating system for its PC-class chips. Historically, Qualcomm CPUs have powered only a handful of Chromebooks, and currently, none utilize the Oryon CPUs. While Google has indicated that ChromeOS and Chromebooks will continue to exist, the introduction of a new desktop Android-first offering is anticipated. The specifics of this development remain to be seen, particularly as Android 16’s desktop experience is currently tailored for tablets and connecting phones to external displays. The vision for dedicated devices, potentially including convertibles, is still unfolding.
