TSMC’s 2nm explosion! Qualcomm’s new AI chip suddenly unveiled

[Financial Channel/Comprehensive Report] Qualcomm (Qualcomm) released a new generation of Android flagship mobile phone chips on the 22nd local time, focusing on "device-side AI" computing capabilities. It launched two products, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and higher-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, targeting the next-generation high-end Android mobile phone market. The new chip uses TSMC’s 2nm process and further brings AI computing to the phone itself, eliminating the need for all AI work to rely on cloud processing.

CNBC reported that another focus of this new product launch is the headwinds Qualcomm is facing in the mobile phone market. As the demand for memory in AI data centers surges, memory supply and price have become important pressures on the mobile phone industry. Qualcomm stated in February this year that as memory suppliers shift part of their production capacity to HBM required for AI data centers, DRAM supply and price may limit the scale of the mobile phone industry.

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The core direction of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series launched by Qualcomm this time is to enhance AI capabilities. Relevant reports pointed out that both chips use TSMC’s 2nm process and are equipped with Qualcomm’s self-developed Oryon CPU. The standard version has a maximum clock speed of 5GHz and integrates CPU, GPU and NPU, allowing mobile phones to directly perform more AI tasks.

Among them, Qualcomm positions the Extreme version as a higher-end flagship product, forming a different market positioning from the standard version. The AI ​​design of the new chip is not just about improving the speed of chat robots or image processing, but moving towards "agent AI" so that AI can understand the user's context and perform more tasks on the device. Qualcomm's announcement also emphasized that AI will gradually shift from a mere functional tool to a deeper core of the mobile phone experience.

In terms of performance, external reports indicate that Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 uses an 8-core Oryon CPU with a maximum clock speed of 5GHz and is equipped with a 16MB Flex Cache; the GPU part is improved compared to the previous generation to further support workloads such as games, audio and video, and AI.

The new chip will also cooperate with Qualcomm's Android ecosystem, and it is expected that high-end mobile phones including Motorola, Xiaomi, ZTE and other brands will adopt related platforms.

However, no matter how powerful the chip performance is, mobile phone manufacturers still have to face the reality of rising memory costs. CNBC reported that the global smartphone market is being affected by soaring memory prices. Market research firm Counterpoint Research estimates that global smartphone shipments may decline by 14% in 2026, and may decrease by another 1% in 2027.

In other words, while Qualcomm is accelerating the integration of AI into Android flagship phones, on the other hand, the entire mobile phone industry is experiencing a "memory shortage" caused by the AI ​​boom. As the demand for AI-powered mobile phones continues to heat up, memory supply and cost may become key constraints on whether the mobile phone market can expand in the next stage.

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