Qualcomm launches Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Extreme chips to take on Apple’s 2nm A20 Pro: All details
Follow UsQualcomm has officially unveiled its next-generation smartphone silicon: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and its higher-tier counterpart, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.
Both processors transition to an advanced 2nm architecture, delivering notable efficiency and raw performance boosts.
They are expected to power the next generation of flagship Android phones, including those from Xiaomi, Motorola and more.
Qualcomm has officially unveiled its next-generation smartphone silicon: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and its higher-tier counterpart, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. This is the first time when Qualcomm has announced dual flagship chips for smartphones, entering a new era with AI agents at the centre of mobile experience.
SurveyAnnounced at the Snapdragon Summit in Maui and designed to take on Apple’s latest mobile chips, this dual-flagship strategy gives Android manufacturers more flexibility at the high end.
What’s new on Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 lineup?
Both processors transition to an advanced 2nm architecture, delivering notable efficiency and raw performance boosts. They are expected to power the next generation of flagship Android phones, including those from Xiaomi, Motorola and more. The CPU in the new lineup features a 2+6 core configuration (two 5GHz Prime cores and six 4GHz Performance cores).
The standard Elite Gen 6 delivers 10 per cent faster CPU performance and 37 per cent better power efficiency over the Gen 5, while the Extreme variant pushes CPU performance up by 13 per cent.
With these chip, Qualcomm is betting big on the agentic AI experience. This will be enabled through massive NPU gains. The Hexagon NPU features a new Element Accelerator to optimise transformer workloads for Large Language Models (LLMs).
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme includes a 50 per cent larger shared memory architecture, supporting localised Mixture of Experts (MoE) models with 30B+ parameters. This drastically reduces latency and reliance on external memory, creating a dedicated foundation for advanced, on-device AI agents.
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The improved Adreno GPU offers up to 35 per cent faster graphics and 40 per cent power savings. The Extreme version adds specialised AI matrix cores and Adreno Neural Fusion for AI super-resolution and frame generation, slashing gaming power usage by up to 40 per cent.
Qualcomm has also upgraded imaging and connectivity with an updated Spectra ISP with Intelligent Pixel Control (supporting 8K60 video on the Extreme) alongside the new Qualcomm X105 5G modem, supporting 3GPP Release 19 5G Advanced with a 6-antenna configuration for faster, more reliable network speeds.
Xiaomi 18 Pro series will be the first to be powered by these new platforms. While Motorola has already confirmed its upcoming Signature 27 smartphone will be among the first devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.
