Qualcomm launches two new smartphone chips with emphasis on AI

Qualcomm has announced two new Snapdragon processors — the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and the Snapdragon Extreme Gen 6 — that aim to bring advanced artificial‑intelligence capabilities directly onto smartphones, reducing reliance on cloud services.

Key Features of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 integrates a dedicated AI accelerator that can run large language models locally, enabling on‑device assistants to respond faster and operate offline. It also adds a next‑generation sensing hub that supports up to eight simultaneous sensor streams, improving health monitoring and AR experiences.

Snapdragon Extreme Gen 6 for Power Users

Targeted at premium flagships, the Snapdragon Extreme Gen 6 offers a higher‑clocked CPU cluster and a more robust GPU, delivering up to 30% better graphics performance compared with its predecessor. The chip’s AI engine is tuned for real‑time image processing, allowing computational photography features such as multi‑frame HDR and AI‑enhanced night mode to run entirely on the device.

Unified AI Software Stack

Both chips ship with Qualcomm’s updated AI software suite, which includes a unified API for developers to deploy models across the CPU, GPU, and dedicated AI cores. This stack is designed to simplify the creation of on‑device AI agents that can handle tasks ranging from voice translation to personalized content recommendation.

• Local AI agents for voice assistants
• Enhanced computational photography pipelines
• Advanced health and fitness sensor integration
• Improved AR and VR rendering

These processors represent a major step toward truly autonomous mobile AI, where the phone can process complex workloads without ever leaving the device.

Qualcomm says the new silicon will be available to OEMs later this year, with the first devices expected to launch in early 2027.

TechCrunch coverage of Qualcomm's new smartphone chips