[Android 0]

Credit: Hadlee Simons / Android Authority

TL;DR

• After CPU and GPU, Qualcomm is teasing NPU upgrades on the upcoming Snapdragon Elite chips.
• The Hexagon NPU is claimed to bring specialized upgrades to respond to queries much faster.
• Qualcomm is stressing heavily on on-device agentic AI workflows, saying the NPU will be able to run Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) models with up to 30B parameters.

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Qualcomm is set to reveal the next generation of flagship chips, including two Elite variants of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 6 (likely naming), on September 22 at the next Snapdragon Summit. While the names remain a mystery, Qualcomm has been dropping hints about the upcoming platforms one by one. After revealing that the upcoming chips would feature the first smartphone CPU to breach the 5GHz mark, and then sharing details about the upgraded GPU that would offer improved frame upscaling tech, Qualcomm is sharing cues about the upgrades coming to the neural processing unit, or NPU.

Today, Qualcomm is sharing details about the next generation of the Hexagon NPU, built to enable on-device multimodal AI applications, especially agents. Two key highlights of the upcoming NPU, according to Qualcomm, are the new “Element Accelerator” and “much larger shared memory.”