BARCELONA, SPAIN – Robotics will become a ‘bigger opportunity’ Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told CNBC that the chip giant will continue to expand beyond smartphones over the next two years.

In January, Qualcomm launched its Dragonwing brand of robotics processors, aiming to create a chipset that can run on multiple robotics platforms. It’s a similar approach to the company’s approach to smartphones, where its Snapdragon processors have become key chips used by electronics companies.

“I think robotics will start to scale in the next two years,” Amon told CNBC on Monday in response to a question about when robotics would become Qualcomm’s materials business.

“I think this will be a bigger opportunity in two years,” he added in an interview at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, ​​Spain.

There are many different types of robots, from those focused on industrial applications (such as robotic arms) to humanoid robots (Tesla-type and Many Chinese companies are developing.

There are various predictions about the size of the robotics market. McKinsey project The general-purpose robot market may reach US$370 billion by 2040, while analysts at RBC Capital Markets predict that the total global potential market for humanoid robots will reach US$9 trillion by 2050.

Robots require processors and a lot of difficult engineering to move. But advances in artificial intelligence models have also led to growing optimism about robotics. These models are designed to power robots so they can understand the world around them and act accordingly. Robots are often lumped into the category of physical artificial intelligence.

“People say that robotics alone could be a trillion-dollar opportunity in terms of market size…The reality is we’re seeing now that robots have become more useful because of physical artificial intelligence,” Amon said.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang I talked about robots last year It is one of the company’s main potential sources of growth.

Robotics was an important theme at Mobile World Congress, with different robots on display. On Sunday, Chinese smartphone maker Honor Teases its first humanoid robot.