Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite to give Chinese smartphones an AI power boost

Xiaomi senior vice-president Adam Zeng announces the planned launch of the Xiaomi 15 series smartphones, which will feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, during the Snapdragon Summit 2024 event on October 21, 2024. Photo: YouTube / Snapdragon

The latest smartphone chip from market leader Qualcomm could give a much-needed boost to Chinese brands trying to take on Apple and Samsung Electronics amid a race to offer artificial intelligence (AI) features.

Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon 8 Elite on Monday with an emphasis on its ability to run generative AI models locally on devices. The included Oryon cores are similar to those found in its laptop chips for Windows machines, and Qualcomm said the new chipset will deliver a 45 per cent boost in performance over its predecessor.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi will be the first to put out a device with the new chip when it launches its Xiaomi 15 series devices at the end of October, the firm's senior vice-president Adam Zeng said at the Qualcomm event.

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"Xiaomi 15 series not only offers excellent performance but also marks a new starting point in our partnership with Qualcomm," Zeng told the audience.

Honor, Oppo's OnePlus and Realme are among the other Chinese smartphone vendors that have announced plans to incorporate the Snapdragon 8 Elite in upcoming products. Realme, a spin-off of Oppo, said it will launch its GT 7 Pro with the chip in November, part of its effort to make gains in the premium handset market.

Honor, a spin-off brand from Huawei Technologies, said its upcoming flagship Magic 7 series, slated to launch on October 30, will also be powered by the new Qualcomm mobile platform.

"We are thrilled to introduce the industry's first AI Agent for the open ecosystem, and bring on-device generative AI to portrait photography and gaming powered by NPU [neural processing unit] computing for the first time to devices," Honor CEO George Zhao Ming said in a statement.

AI features have become the most important market differentiator in the latest generation of smartphones, and the largest brands including Apple, Google and Samsung have started designing their own chips with NPU cores to handle those tasks.

Samsung, which also manufactures chips, uses a mix of its own Exynos processors and Snapdragon chips in its Galaxy phones, depending on the model. The South Korean tech giant announced that it would be using the Snapdragon 8 Elite in upcoming phones.

Chinese smartphone makers have been ramping up efforts to improve generative AI capabilities. Apple's anticipated iOS 18.1 update will soon bring Apple Intelligence features to iPhones in some countries, but it will have a staggered roll-out and will not be immediately available in China, which domestic brands are rushing to capitalise on.

Qualcomm has been a key partner for Android smartphone makers, especially in the high-end market segment. Its global smartphone processor shipments increased in the second quarter over the previous three months to capture a 31 per cent market share, driven by the premium segment, according to data by Counterpoint Research.

Taiwanese chip designer MediaTek, known for its more cost-effective processors, was the largest player in smartphone chipsets in the second quarter with 32 per cent of the global market, according to Counterpoint.

Qualcomm's successful expansion of the Oryon design from laptops to smartphones vividly demonstrates its edge in chip design, according to Counterpoint senior analyst William Li.

"This move not only injects new vitality into the ecosystem but also will have a profound impact on the development of the entire smartphone industry," Li said on Tuesday.

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