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The chip boasts 32-bit support, Wi-Fi 7 and other new features.

During the Snapdragon Summit 2022 in Hawaii this week, Qualcomm Technologies introduced its latest premium mobile platform, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform will define a new standard for connected computing, Qualcomm boasts. They say the chip features “groundbreaking AI across the board” to enable “extraordinary experiences”.

The company said the new chip will be adopted by global OEMs and brands including ASUS Republic of Gamers, Motorola, OnePlus, OPPO, Sharp, Sony Corporation, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE.

“We are passionate about enabling people to do more, so we design Snapdragon with the user at the center”, said Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handset at Qualcomm. “Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will revolutionize the landscape of flagship smartphones in 2023.”

A mobile platform with multiple Arm cores

The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is a 4 nm chip with a layout that contains four different CPU cores. All the cores were designed by Arm. Qualcomm promises a peak Wi-Fi speed of 5.8Gbps with Wi-Fi 7 support. You’ll need to have a Wi-Fi 7 router in order to realise those speeds. TP-Link, for example, recently announced Wi-Fi 7 capable routers for Q1 2023.

The new Snapdragon chip includes support for AV1, a royalty-free video codec. Major companies like Amazon, Arm, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nvidia and Samsung have decided to support AV1. Moreover, Netflix and YouTube have gone all-in on AV1 by making support for the codec mandatory for hardware manufacturers seeking to license their services.

The first commercial Android devices to offer the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 are expected by the end of 2022, Qualcomm said.

Tip: Qualcomm avoids billion-euro fine, antitrust saga ends