At this yr’s Snapdragon Summit, the story went effectively past the brand new processors that Qualcomm declares yearly in Maui, Hawaii. It was refreshing to see how Qualcomm positioned the ecosystem on the heart, placing its applied sciences on the coronary heart of the merchandise that can start reaching the market within the days and months forward.
In fact, we realized concerning the newest chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is able to energy upcoming flagship Android smartphones, in addition to brand-new computing chips set to reach within the subsequent technology of PCs. Nevertheless, it was Google’s affirmation that Android and ChromeOS will merge to create a brand new Working System for computer systems subsequent yr that stole the limelight, and for good purpose. That’s loads to unpack, all issues thought of. In case you missed out catching the livestream otherwise you need to rewatch one of many largest bulletins from the occasion, right here’s a refresher from the Snapdragon Summit (together with my takeaways from the occasion)
A brand new flagship smartphone chip
Qualcomm’s bread and butter stays creating cellular processors for smartphones, together with a essential element of a smartphone’s interior workings: the processor, or the “mind” of the cellphone – together with related applied sciences just like the modem. In spite of everything, these are the largest income mills for the San Diego-based firm. As anticipated on the Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the processor that can energy upcoming Android flagship telephones, with Samsung, Xiaomi, Honor, and OnePlus main the primary wave of units constructed across the new chip.
Qualcomm claims its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the “quickest cellular CPU on this planet,” boasting a document clock velocity of 4.6 GHz (in comparison with Apple’s A19 Professional, which powers the iPhone 17 Professional Max, at 4.26 GHz). The corporate touts important efficiency features, together with a 23 per cent quicker GPU and a 37 per cent quicker NPU. Whether or not these claims maintain up shall be decided as soon as assessment items arrive, however a quicker GPU might have an particularly large influence on cellular gaming.
A Qualcomm government presents efficiency benchmarks for creator instruments on the Snapdragon Summit 2025, highlighting as much as 64 per cent quicker CPU efficiency and 45 per cent quicker picture results with the brand new Snapdragon X2 Elite chip. (Picture: Anuj Bhatia/The Indian Specific)
Like Apple, Qualcomm additionally claims its new cellular processor brings velocity enhancements to a cellphone’s efficiency. Nevertheless, there are three significantly fascinating facets of the brand new chip that haven’t been highlighted. One in all them is Qualcomm’s Private Scribe – an agentic AI assistant powered by the brand new Sensing Hub that learns your habits to make suggestions and act in your behalf. Deeply built-in on the chip stage, the assistant delivers a extremely personalised expertise. It will likely be fascinating to see how smartphone manufacturers implement this function, which learns about your behaviour and operates throughout your apps and companies.
One other spotlight of the brand new Snapdragon chip is how Qualcomm goes after the creator market with a complicated video recording function within the Skilled Video Codec, bringing crisp HDR footage that’s simpler to edit with out high quality loss. Whereas every smartphone maker does plenty of finetuning to the digicam, this new chip-level function provides a recording function that’s aimed toward content material creators. The “near-lossless” codec, created in partnership with Samsung, is a solution to Apple’s ProRes format.
The brand new cellular chip additionally consists of Snapdragon Audio Sense, a microphone know-how with wind noise rejection, audio zoom, and HDR audio, enabling 24-bit audio recording in any surroundings while not having exterior microphones.
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Whereas the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 stays a flagship processor, Qualcomm pulled a shock by saying a second premium-tier processor. Particulars are restricted for now, however the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 will sit under the flagship mannequin. The technique mirrors Apple’s two-chip iPhone strategy: providing two cellular chips, with the latter increasing on the premium smartphone expertise at a barely lower cost.
New chips like these are essential for an organization like Qualcomm to remain aggressive. Though competitors from MediaTek and Apple is getting stiff, smartphones nonetheless stay the de facto centerpiece of the incumbent ecosystem. Qualcomm might already be speaking about agentic AI and AI assistants that would sooner or later change apps, and ultimately, smartphones may not be central, doubtlessly giving method to good glasses. Fact be advised, telephones aren’t going wherever, a minimum of for now. Whereas the longevity of smartphones is growing and fewer customers are prepared to switch their telephones yearly as they used to, smartphones will not be doubtless to get replaced by good glasses anytime quickly.
Beefier computing chips, with a give attention to enterprise prospects
Though Qualcomm continues to be a brand new participant within the PC market, it goals to compete with veteran gamers like Intel and AMD, in addition to Apple, which designs its personal M-series chips for Mac computer systems. The corporate’s newly introduced X2 Elite and X2 Elite Excessive chips, which is able to seem in a number of the high laptops and different PCs over the subsequent yr, are highly effective, with the latter processor reaching clock speeds of as much as 5 GHz. The brand new processors function the third-generation Oryon CPU with as much as 18 cores – six greater than their predecessors. Qualcomm’s large guess with these processors is that by distributing workloads throughout the CPU, GPU, and NPU, energy consumption shall be optimized with none drop in efficiency.
Qualcomm’s X2 Elite and X2 Elite Excessive chips tackle PC processors from Intel, AMD and Apple. (Picture credit score: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Specific)
These chips additionally lean closely on AI, bringing multimodal content material technology and agentic AI to the forefront. Actually, the X2 Elite can ship as much as 80 TOPS of AI processing, enabling probably the most superior Home windows-powered Copilot Plus PCs. In the meantime, Qualcomm’s partnership with Adobe, which provides a inventive suite of apps together with Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere Professional, means laptops powered by the brand new chips will ship as much as 47 per cent quicker efficiency.
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As well as, Qualcomm’s new PC chips help lightning-fast 5G with speeds as much as 10 Gbps, a serious benefit for connectivity. The give attention to PC gaming additionally guarantees quicker efficiency and smoother graphics, permitting demanding video games to run seamlessly. The large takeaway is that Qualcomm is step by step concentrating on enterprises and enterprise (and even PC avid gamers) customers with these new chips, which is able to energy a number of the greatest and quickest Home windows laptops beginning subsequent yr.
Qualcomm guarantees “pre-commercial 6G units” shall be right here in three years
5G is all over the place. Possibly it’s not talked about a lot, however a number of years in the past, it was probably the most buzzed-about know-how. Equally, we might begin listening to loads about 6G, the brand new wi-fi connectivity normal, within the coming months. Qualcomm says 6G is coming quickly and can ultimately change 5G. You is likely to be questioning what 6G really means. Certain, it will likely be tremendous quick and improve community speeds, but it surely’s anticipated to be very totally different from 5G – a minimum of by way of use circumstances.
In the course of the Snapdragon Summit keynote, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon drew consideration to 6G, the next-gen connectivity normal. (Picture credit score: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Specific)
In the course of the Snapdragon Summit keynote, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon mentioned, “6G is designed to be the connection between the cloud and edge units.” What does that imply? Amon explains that it will likely be “a community clever sufficient to understand sensor information.” He implies {that a} new stage of connectivity is required for a world the place AI should course of sensor information on the edge, whether or not out of your cellphone or a pair of good glasses, after which practice on that information from the true world round you. Amon provides that 6G will give attention to “connecting the sting and the cloud, merging not solely the bodily and digital, but additionally creating completely new experiences.”
Amon additional predicted that the change is already underway. “We’re able to have pre-commercial units as early as 2028. When that occurs, we have now context-aware intelligence at scale – and it’s going to occur all over the place.” Anticipate to listen to extra about 6G early subsequent yr.
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Google’s comeback into the PC market
ChromeOS is lifeless, whether or not Google admits it or not. Neither is Android a alternative for ChromeOS. Maybe Google has an answer to this downside… why not merge Android and ChromeOS? Properly, that’s going to occur subsequent yr. Rick Osterloh, senior vp of platforms and units at Google, and Android chief Samir Samant each took the stage at this week’s Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii to substantiate that Android for PC is coming subsequent yr.
Google’s Sameer Samat explains the subsequent chapter for Android and ChromeOS. (Picture credit score: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Specific)
Osterloh, who oversees each Google’s {hardware} and Android divisions, shared some particulars concerning the challenge. “We’re constructing collectively a technical basis for our merchandise on PCs and desktop computing techniques,” he mentioned. “That is one other approach we are able to leverage all the nice work we’re doing on our AI stack, our full stack, bringing Gemini fashions, the Assistant, and our purposes and developer group into the PC area.”
Precisely how the mixed OS will look continues to be unknown, however Qualcomm’s involvement signifies that each corporations are as much as one thing. It’s simply that neither is able to share extra particulars.
“If you concentrate on the laptop computer kind issue, we have now had ChromeOS for a very long time, and we’re tremendous dedicated to that platform. It’s been actually profitable for us, and we have now realized loads from it. We even have Android tablets which were very profitable; they’re turning into extra productivity-focused on a regular basis. So the chance we see is how we are able to speed up all of the AI developments we’re doing on Android and produce them to the laptop computer kind issue as quickly as doable, whereas making certain the laptop computer and the remainder of the Android ecosystem work seamlessly collectively,” Samant mentioned about merging Android and ChromeOS on the Snapdragon Summit.
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“So what we’re doing is principally taking the ChromeOS expertise and re-baselining the know-how beneath it on Android. That mixture is one thing we’re very enthusiastic about for subsequent yr, and we’re working with companions on it, and we are able to’t wait.”
ChromeOS has lengthy been a light-weight OS for computer systems and laptops. The OS has seen many modifications through the years, but it surely has sadly by no means developed to change into one thing like Home windows or macOS. Nevertheless, with Google going all-in on Gemini, it might deliver new experiences to the corporate’s big-screen OS, giving it a transparent goal within the AI-ready world.