The tech business is accelerating its AI race, and that features the telephones in your pocket. Qualcomm has new chips that can energy essentially the most premium upcoming Android units, a few of that are popping out now.
At Snapdragon Summit 2026 in Maui, Hawaii, Qualcomm revealed its subsequent telephone chips with upgrades to enhance AI options. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 is the most recent best-of-the-best chip, and barely beneath that’s the equally named (however not excessive) Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, which supersedes final yr’s top-end Qualcomm cellular silicon. Both are constructed on a 2nm course of node for quicker processing and higher effectivity.
We gained’t have to attend lengthy to see these chips in motion. At the summit on Tuesday, Xiaomi and Motorola each debuted new telephones powered by the chips. The Motorola Signature 27, which shall be launched later this yr, options the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip, which powers a four-camera suite together with a 50-megapixel predominant digital camera and a 200-megapixel periscope telephoto shooter, in addition to Google’s Gemini AI.
Like their predecessors, these new chips can energy AI brokers to deal with complicated duties within the background, reply queries throughout a number of apps and anticipate wants. The purpose is to ship quicker, extra responsive AI experiences, Qualcomm mentioned in a briefing forward of the announcement.
Why make two chips on the very high finish? Qualcomm says it’s to present phone-makers extra choices. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 succeeds final yr’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 with high efficiency; the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 is a step above, a brand new, even increased class of chip, distinguished by its better functionality to run AI brokers. This contains supporting 30-billion-plus parameter AI fashions, higher video capabilities and “considerably enhanced on-device AI efficiency,” in keeping with Qualcomm.
The 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 affords further perks over the 8 Elite Gen 6, together with AI-dedicated matrix cores in its Adreno GPU, in addition to AI graphics options equivalent to upscaling and body technology for increased body charges, very like highly effective console and PC GPUs. The 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6’s AI capabilities are powered by an expanded Hexagon NPU with an improved 16MB of FlexCache shared reminiscence, which is 50% bigger than its predecessor’s, to shortly retailer and retrieve information with out ready for info to be fetched from RAM. For telephone cameras, the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 helps the AI-enhanced Advanced Professional Video codec, in addition to taking pictures in 8K at 60 frames per second and 4K at 240 fps for slow-motion.
By the numbers, the chips break down like this — in comparison with final yr’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5:
- The 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 has 13% improved CPU efficiency, whereas the 8 Elite Gen 6 has 10%.
- Graphics-processing-wise, the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 has 44% improved GPU efficiency, whereas the 8 Elite Gen 6 has 37%.
- For AI, the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 has 35% improved NPU efficiency, whereas the 8 Elite Gen 6 has 14%.
- Both chips are in a useless warmth on improved CPU (37%) and GPU (40%) energy effectivity, however the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 has the sting in AI performance-per-watt (33%) in comparison with the 8 Elite Gen 6 (20%).
The latest-generation Qualcomm-designed Oryon CPU in each chips tops out at 5GHz — the world’s first cellular chip to take action, the corporate says. This efficiency enchancment ought to increase all-around processing, recreation and digital camera efficiency.
The redesigned sensing hub, which tracks voice and different sensor information within the background earlier than spinning up the extra highly effective processors, now has twin micro neural processing items which might be able to 85% extra efficiency and 20% better effectivity.
The chips additionally pack a brand new model of the collection’ sound chip referred to as the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2, which has double the AI efficiency and makes use of as much as 40% much less energy, Qualcomm mentioned. Separately, the corporate is debuting a line of apps and brokers for units that assist Snapdragon Sound software program.
Editors’ word: David Lumb’s journey prices have been lined by Qualcomm. The judgments and opinions of CNET are our personal.
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