Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon X2 Elite and Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Ultra, Fully Betting on the Edge AI Ecosystem
On September 24 (local time), at the simultaneously kickoff Snapdragon Summit 2025 in Hawaii and Beijing, Qualcomm launched two heavyweight new products targeting the world’s two largest consumer electronics markets: personal computers (PCs) and smartphones. The giant, renowned for its mobile communication technologies, sent a strong signal with its so-called "world’s fastest" Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, Snapdragon X2 Elite processors, and Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 mobile platform: Qualcomm not only aims to consolidate its flagship position in the Android smartphone sector but also intends to launch a head-on challenge to the PC performance landscape long defined by Intel and Apple in an unprecedented manner.
Following last year’s success with the first-generation Snapdragon X Elite chip— which helped the Windows on Arm platform break free from the awkward situation of being "barely useful" and even made its way into Microsoft’s Surface product line, initially proving the energy efficiency potential of its architecture— the all-new Snapdragon X2 series carries higher expectations: transitioning from a challenger to a leader. Qualcomm released two versions this time: the Snapdragon X2 Elite for high-end PCs, and the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme exclusively built for ultra-premium Windows 11 PCs. Qualcomm openly claims it as "the fastest and most efficient Windows PC processor available today."
Image | Snapdragon X2 Elite (Source: Qualcomm)
Underpinning this confidence is Qualcomm’s self-developed 3rd-gen Oryon CPU core. Built on a 3nm process, this processor integrates up to 18 cores in the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, with two performance cores boasting a maximum clock speed of 5GHz— a first for Arm-compatible CPUs, according to Qualcomm.
What’s more notable is its energy efficiency. Based on the data presented by Qualcomm, in comparisons with competitors at the same level, the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme outperforms rivals by up to 44% in single-core CPU performance and 75% in multi-core performance at the same power consumption level. To match its peak performance, competitors require 144% to 222% more power consumption.
In terms of graphics processing capabilities, the all-new Adreno GPU architecture delivers a 2.3x improvement in performance per watt. To address the shortcomings of the Windows on Arm ecosystem in gaming performance, Qualcomm has specifically equipped the GPU with 18MB of dedicated high-speed cache, aiming to enhance the gaming experience. Additionally, the new platform supports the full features of Unreal Engine 5, including hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading, intended to provide a more solid hardware foundation for developers and gamers.
A key upgrade in this PC chip update lies in its AI processing capability. The Snapdragon X2 Elite series integrates an all-new Hexagon NPU with an AI computing power of 80 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second). Compared to the previous generation’s 45 TOPS, this represents a significant leap, leading Qualcomm to call it "the world’s fastest NPU for laptops."
However, terminal devices equipped with these two processors are not expected to hit the market until the first half of 2026, which, to a certain extent, gives competitors ample time to prepare and respond.
Meanwhile, in Qualcomm’s traditional stronghold—the mobile sector—the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Ultra, the core of most Android flagship smartphones in 2025, also made its debut as scheduled.
Image | Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Ultra (Source: Qualcomm)
This chip also adopts a 3nm process and 3rd-gen Oryon CPU cores, with a maximum clock speed of 4.6GHz. Qualcomm claims that its 3rd-gen Oryon CPU is currently "the world’s fastest mobile CPU." Compared to its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Ultra delivers a 20% improvement in CPU performance, a 23% boost in GPU performance, and a significant 37% increase in NPU performance, capable of processing up to 220 tokens per second. In terms of energy efficiency, CPU power consumption is reduced by 35%, and GPU power consumption by 20%.
Qualcomm announced that major global smartphone brands, including Xiaomi, Samsung, OPPO, vivo, and Honor, will successively release flagship new models equipped with this platform "in the coming days." Among them, the Xiaomi 17 series, one of the world’s first models to feature the chip, was officially launched the same night.
Image | Core Performance Indicators of Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Ultra (Source: Qualcomm)
Beyond conventional performance upgrades, the biggest highlight of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Ultra is its in-depth support for "Agentic AI." Chris Patrick, Senior Vice President of Qualcomm’s Mobile Business, described that this chip will "enable personalized AI agents to see what you see, hear what you hear, and think what you think in real time." Behind this lies continuous edge-side learning and real-time sensing capabilities, designed to allow multimodal AI models to truly understand users, provide proactive, context-based suggestions and assistance, while theoretically keeping user data locally on the device to ensure privacy and security.
Additionally, the platform is the first in the world to support hardware recording of Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec— a nearly lossless video format co-developed with Samsung, aiming to rival Apple’s ProRes format and provide professional video creators with a mobile shooting solution featuring higher quality and greater post-production flexibility.
Overall, the core thread running through the launch of these two heavyweight products is Qualcomm’s firm bet on the future of AI.
Precedence Research, a market research firm, predicted in a report on the edge AI chip market that the global edge AI chip market size will grow from $8.3 billion in 2025 to $36.12 billion by 2034, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.75%. The key driver behind this growth is the market’s demand for devices with low latency, real-time processing, and high privacy. What Qualcomm is doing is positioning itself as the "arms supplier" of this new era, providing core power for all forms of personal computing terminals.
In his keynote speech, Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm, outlined six core trends shaping the future of AI: AI as the new user interface; the shift of user experience from smartphone-centric to agent-centric; the transformation of computing architecture; the hybrid development of models; the enhanced relevance of edge data; and the move toward future sensing networks.
Image | Cristiano Amon’s Keynote at the Summit (Source: Qualcomm)
These trends collectively point to a clear direction: the focus of computing is shifting from the cloud to the edge— i.e., the devices in users’ hands. Qualcomm’s strategy is to seize the critical link of "the edge." Both PCs and smartphones will become cores for hosting personalized AI experiences. This "hybrid AI" architecture, where terminals and the cloud work in synergy, can fully leverage the low-latency and high-privacy advantages of terminal-side data processing, while utilizing the cloud’s powerful computing power for model training and complex task handling.
Qualcomm’s strength lies in its cross-cutting technologies spanning connectivity (5G/6G, Wi-Fi) and computing (CPU, GPU, NPU), endowing it with systematic advantages in building efficient edge intelligent devices. The concept of "The Ecosystem of You" proposed by Amon is precisely the ultimate goal of this strategy: in the future, all of a user’s devices— smartphones, PCs, cars, XR glasses, wearables— will no longer be isolated entities. Instead, through seamlessly connected and collaborative AI agents, they will jointly form a highly personalized intelligent network centered around the user.
To advance the realization of this vision, Qualcomm also joined hands with numerous local partners at the China Summit to launch the "AI Acceleration Initiative," aiming to collaborate with China’s industrial ecosystem to explore and unlock the potential of edge intelligence, and accelerate the large-scale application of AI in fields such as personal AI, physical AI, and industrial AI.
From this perspective, the most noteworthy aspect of Qualcomm’s press conference may not just be the performance data of a few chips at a specific point in time. After all, claiming to be "the world’s fastest" always carries risks— competitors will soon launch faster products. Qualcomm’s advantage does not lie in performance leadership at a single moment, but in the ecosystem it is building: bringing Arm architecture into the PC market, equipping smartphones with professional creative capabilities, and making AI computing ubiquitous. The competition around edge AI has already begun, and Qualcomm has shown its hand.
References:
https://www.qualcomm.com/news/re ... -mobile-system-on-a
https://www.qualcomm.com/product ... snapdragon-x2-elite
https://www.precedenceresearch.c ... igence-chips-market
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