Qualcomm’s next big Snapdragon chip has leaked, and it’s full of AI features

Qualcomm’s next big Snapdragon chip has leaked, and it’s full of AI features

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The next big Snapdragon chip headed to Android phones is likely to be announced this week — and details have leaked early revealing a heavy focus on AI. According to MSPoweruser, Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will support some handy and creative AI camera tools, including the ability to remove objects from videos, expand areas of a photo, and generate fake backgrounds.

The leaked marketing materials also boast about the chip’s ability to run various AI models, including both Stable Diffusion and Meta’s Llama 2. Making that happen is supposed to be an upgraded Hexagon neural processor, which the leaked document says is 98 percent faster (presumably than last year’s processor, but the image doesn’t clarify). Qualcomm showed off the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s ability to run Stable Diffusion back in February, but the company seems to be making AI execution more of a focus on the Gen 3 given the year AI tech is having.

This chip is likely headed first to Samsung’s Galaxy S24 line, which is expected in the first quarter of 2024. As Qualcomm’s flagship mobile chip, it’ll appear in other top-of-the-line Android phones throughout the year, with the notable exception of Google’s Pixel line, which relies on the company’s own Tensor processors. Qualcomm’s AI focus makes the stakes high for Google to do a good job with its Tensor chips since its ability to develop custom AI features is a key reason the company decided to move away from Qualcomm.

Qualcomm has a bunch of other updates in store for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that go beyond AI. The leaked materials promise a 30 percent faster CPU, a 25 percent faster GPU, support for 240fps gaming, improved ray tracing, night vision video capture, and Dolby HDR photo capture. 5G Advanced support is supposed to be included, too, so maybe your 5G connection will actually start to feel 5G this time.

You can view the whole sheet of leaked specs at MSPoweruser. Qualcomm should officially announce the chip tomorrow at its Snapdragon Summit. The company is hosting an event starting October 24th at 3AM ET / 12AM PT.