At Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit, Samsung might have effectively confirmed its upcoming Galaxy S26 range of smartphones will be powered by the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor.
During the product keynote, Dr Won-Joon Choi, President and COO of Mobile Experience Business at Samsung, took to the stage to talk about the company’s partnership with Qualcomm.
Highlighted in the presentation was how the previous Snapdragon chipsets in the last two generations of Galaxy S flagship handsets made things like producing the ‘world’s first AI phone’ possible.
Choi said, “We’ve been proud to be close partners with Qualcomm at every critical moment of market disruption. And looking ahead, will only deepen our collaboration even further,”
“Together, we ensure that our customers and everyone around them can enjoy richer and more connected lives.”
If you ask me, this strongly suggests that Qualcomm will power the next Samsung phones.
Chris Martin / Foundry
Samsung was mentioned in the official list of confirmed brands to be building devices with the new Elite Gen 5, but with no mention of what devices. However, it’s surely no coincidence that Samsung made a key appearance at the same event where the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 was announced just a few months before the next generation of devices is due to launch.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon even leapt on stage with Choi for a photo opportunity.
If the Galaxy S26 range does come with Qualcomm under the hood, then it will almost certainly be another ‘for Galaxy’ edition. This would mean the phones will come with an even faster, overclocked version of the chipset, which is already the “world’s fastest mobile CPU” at 4.6GHz for the two prime cores – thrashing the iPhone 17 Pro in benchmarks.
Going by the boost on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, the Galaxy S26 Ultra could come in at a whopping 4.75GHz, making it the most powerful smartphone ever made in this particular spec.
Time will tell, but if the S26 launches with a MediaTek Dimensity, I’ll eat my hat.
