- Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 platform for future smartphones
- It focuses not only on the execution of AI’s features, but also to collect information for future AI models
- The first Elite Gen 5 phones will come from Xiaomi, and it will probably feed a rumor Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra
At the Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm announced today the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 mobile platform, the chipset which will probably feed the new flagship Android smartphones of this year, such as the alleged Samsung Galaxy S26 and OnePlus 14 alleged, of course, the platform focuses on machine learning features.
The Qualcomm model has in mind is what is called agentic AI. The concept of agentic AI is an automatic learning tool that does everything for you. Whatever you want to do with your smartphone, instead of typing and slipping, you just talk to the AI agent. He will determine the necessary steps and take these measures.
In addition to the treatment of faster applications and larger graphic capacities, Qualcomm is more global over a future with AI at the center. As he has said for years, AI is the new user interface, which means that artificial intelligence will be the interface we use to control our smartphones and laptops.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will use your phone as training data for a future AI
Although previous chipsets have included a neuronal treatment unit (NPU) to manage automatic learning tools such as large languages models (LLM), the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will have improved capacities to collect sensor data from your smartphone. This could include your camera, your microphone, your accelerometer (movement) and your magnetometer (compass) and any other sensor that collects data.
Why does Snapdragon need your sensor data? Qualcomm says that past AI models have been trained on Internet data, but it plans to take advantage of its position in millions of devices to collect all the training data that it can start from the sensors of your smartphone. If you have a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 device, the use of the device will create training data that could be used for future AI models.
This means that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will not only generate images with generative AI tools, it will also capture images from camera or sound sensors from microphones – data from one of the integrated sensors – to supply future automatic learning models. These models must still be built, but telephone manufacturers and AI developers will have more tools in Snapdragon 8 elite than ever before.
Is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 the fastest mobile platform? Yes.
Qualcomm says that its new chipset is the fastest mobile platform you will find, a photo directly at Apple, which has made exactly the same assertion on its Apple A19 Pro chipset on iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air. In the past, the snapdragon 8 elite was the fastest chipset for multi -core performance, while the Apple chipset was faster on monomerous references. Apple A19 Pro this year was the fastest of the two types of tests.
I had the chance to compare the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 on a reference device, and so far, Qualcomm’s claims have been true, although it could change when I can test the new platform on a real retail sales smartphone.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the fastest phone I have tested. I tested it against a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra with a snapdragon 8 elite For the galaxy Chipset inside, and against an iPhone 17 Pro Max with the Apple A19 Pro chipset. In each reference test that I tried from 3dmark and geekbench, the Snapdragon Gen 5 chipset beat the other platforms.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 seems much faster than the Snapdragon 8 elite, and marginally faster than the Apple A19 Pro, but the difference is real and perceptible on the reference tests with a high intensity of graphics. You can really see that the Snapdragon is working on a higher frames – these are not only meaningless numbers.
Here is when you can buy a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 phone
However, it will be up to the manufacturers of telephones to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 to its full potential. We expect the first phone with the new platform inside that is the next Xiaomi 17 series, followed closely by OnePlus (and Oppo), if recent history is a guide. Last year, the OnePlus 13 was launched in China almost immediately after the announcement of the Snapdragon 8 elite.
Finally, it is likely that Samsung will use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 platform on some or all its Galaxy S26 devices. Samsung historically launched its flagship smartphones in January, and in the past two years, it has bought a Snapdragon special edition of Qualcomm with a slightly overclocking primary nucleus. This gives it an advantage in reference tests, even if the difference is negligible.
Qualcomm offers specifications for its smartphones platforms, but these are the theoretical capacities of the chipset, and it will be up to the telephone manufacturers to drive the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 to its full potential.
For example, Qualcomm says that Image processors from the Gen 5 platform can drive up to three 48 Mp cameras simultaneously for a triple camera recording. We still need a smartphone manufacturer to create this phone with three cameras and the software to make it work.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 could be ideal for games and long battery life
Players should be excited for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Qualcomm says that the new Adreno GPU inside will offer a 23% increase in overall performance and a 20% reduction in energy consumption.
The Snapdragon 8 elite was particularly notable in my tests for its effectiveness – phones with this snapdragon inside lasted much longer than phones with other chipsets. I am delighted to learn that the Gen 5 platform even offers more Battery life potential.
We are going to dive deeper into the capacities of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 platform, as well as the new Snapdragon X2 Elite Elite laptop chipsets, as continues the Snapdragon Summit. Qualcomm has piloted Techradar Phone and the publishers of laptops in Maui to cover the event, and we will be on the spot to deepen the potential of the platforms and grill the leaders of Qualcomm for their point of view on what will happen.
