Upendra M. Kulkarni

Engineering executive passionate about innovation, execution, and customer success in the PC ecosystem - with years of experience in h/w-s/w architecture, product development, and quality, together with excellent business acumen. Currently leading the Windows PC platform SW efforts at Qualcomm as the “PC is reborn”! Responsible for setting direction, prioritizing / guiding execution, and leading the software engagement with Microsoft for the Snapdragon X line of processors with leadership ARM CPU, competitive GPU, and a groundbreaking NPUs. Setting strategic direction on SW to enable broad acceptance and ramp of the game changing Snapdragon SoCs in Windows ecosystem via h/w-s/w compatibility architecture, unified driver architecture, driver release cadence, user updateable drivers, OEM/ODM/ISV tools, UEFI integration and upstreaming. Transforming app compatibility - Engaging with a vast network of ISVs to build a strong portfolio of apps via emulation, and native port. App categories include productivity, entertainment, enterprise, web / social media, security, creator and dev tools. Working closely with Microsoft to deliver great emulation experience via Prism technology, which sets a new bar on x86 emulation. Performance optimization by tuning math libraries, memory management, voltage/freq switching policies and OS scheduler. Leading strategic engagements with a large number of ISVs for delivering AI experiences using the NPU – LLMs, LVMs, Computer Vision and emerging Agentic models – running in fp16, fp8, fp4, int16, int8 or int2 precision, optimizing model size for memory footprint and bandwidth while balancing accuracy, enabling ISVs using Qualcomm APIs and advanced model quantization tools, as well as driving scale via MS standard APIs like the new Windows ML / AI Foundry Local. Leading the engagement with Microsoft on shifting OS embedded AI models to run locally on the NPU – video processing, image filtering, upscaling, live translation, transcription, Copilot+, Recall, SLM and reasoning models (Phi family) and future use cases. Responsible for engagements with OEMs and IBVs for SW feature requirements, use case analysis, prioritization, collaboration with engineering for scheduling and product delivery. Leading engagements with key benchmark vendors for CPU, GPU and NPU – UL/Procyon, Primate Labs, Maxon, and open source projects. Driving strategy and delivery of ISV/developer tools and dev platforms – compilers, IDE, debuggers, performance analyzers, and core libraries. Reach out if you want to propel this rocket ship!