Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon X chips arrive at the beginning of next year

Qualcomm is working on its next-gen Oryon CPU core, and the company plans to detail its capabilities in full at the Snapdragon Summit in September. Now, Qualcomm's Alex Katouzian has shared a release window, saying that next-gen Snapdragon X chips should start showing up in devices in Q1 2026. Although Qualcomm didn't have many announcements at Computex this year, it laid out plenty of teases for what's coming next, including the next-gen Oryon core and its expansion into the data center market.

Next-gen Snapdragon X chips are on the way

And they might be bigger than expected

Although it's great to get a release window for next-gen Snapdragon X chips, you could connect the dots yourself. If Qualcomm is detailing the capabilities of the CPU core in September, it's probably on track for an early 2026 launch. What's more interesting is what this new core could be capable of, and more importantly, how Qualcomm might scale it to combat the high-performance x86 options available from Intel and AMD.

I asked Katouzian about Qualcomm's view of the recent push for Big Chips in consumer devices, namely SoCs like the M3 Ultra in the Mac Studio and AMD's Strix Halo, and specifically if Qualcomm was interested in releasing a product in that vein. His response: "Oh, 100%." Although devices packing a Snapdragon X chip like the Asus ProArt PZ13 offer decent performance, Qualcomm hasn't gone after any sort of high-performance scenario; something that you'd find in a capable mobile workstation. It's clear Qualcomm isn't content to sit still in the mainstream, efficiency-focused mobile market.

Katouzian says that Qualcomm is already working on the generation after the one we'll learn about in September, and then, Katouzian suggested, is when we'll see a larger push toward high-end configurations. Although Katouzian was keen not to reveal too many details, he suggested this generation would include a full product stack to compete from the low-end up to the high-end.

Outside next-gen Snapdragon X chips, I pressed Katouzian on figures shared by CEO Christiano Amon during Qualcomm's keynote, specifically its 9% global market share and its goal for 12% market share by 2029. Unlike the 10% market share figure Qualcomm shared for the US market months back, Katouzian says the 9% market share number includes laptops priced above $600, but it excludes desktops. As for the 12% figure, I wanted to know if Qualcomm wanted to revise that goal given the state of trade in the US.

The short answer is, no, Qualcomm is still holding onto that figure. Katouzian says its main strategy for growth comes from expanding to other markets, not just increasing its market share within major markets like the US. He specifically pointed to Japan, China, and India, in which he claims the Snapdragon brand already has a lot of staying power.