Technologies

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Chip Will Boost AI in 2026’s Most Powerful Phones

The next mobile chip boosts efficiency, performance and AI neural processing.

At Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit off the west coast of Maui, the company unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, its next-generation chip intended for next year’s top-tier Android phones.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 succeeds last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, which saw the mobile debut of Qualcomm’s in-house Oryon central processing unit for more power and efficiency over older silicon from Arm. As expected, this year’s 8 Elite Gen 5 improves performance over its predecessor. The upgrades include faster processing for AI agents, which can take in data from cameras and microphones to make informed suggestions to phone owners.

«[Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5] enables personalized AI agents to see what you see, hear what you hear and think with you in real time,» said Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handset at Qualcomm in a press release.

Qualcomm announced that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will feature in premium phones from Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Honor, Oppo, Vivo and more brands. The first devices will be announced in the coming days, Qualcomm said.

Compared to last year’s mobile chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 CPU has 20% better performance and up to 35% improved power efficiency, while the graphics processing unit has 23% better performance and reduces power consumption by 20%, meaning longer gaming sessions while playing on phones.

For AI, the chip’s neural processing unit is 37% faster, and it can handle AI inquiries at 220 tokens per second — an improvement over its predecessor’s 70 tokens per second, or the Snapdragon X Elite PC chip’s 30 tokens per second. It gathers personal information to empower AI agents — the next generation of AI assistants — to make recommendations and suggestions suited to your behavior and tastes.

Phones coming out with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will be the first mobile devices to use a new video codec, Advanced Professional Video, that enables taking near lossless-quality footage as well as more granular controls in post-production for precise color grading, Qualcomm says. The chip has a fully computational video pipeline, meaning phones can extract single frames from videos with the same visual quality as still images.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 uses Qualcomm’s X85 modem along with the company’s FastConnect 7900 connectivity chip, with Wi-Fi 7 and AI that leads to up to 40% power savings as well as optimizing Wi-Fi for 50% lower latency for gaming.

At the end of the Snapdragon Summit’s product keynote, Qualcomm group general manager Alex Katouzian introduced another chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. Though he didn’t share many details, this chip will be for slightly less premium phones (though still more capable than the Snapdragon 7 line of silicon) and take the place of the «S» sub-series of chips, like the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 released last year.

Technologies

Apple to Build the Mac Mini in the United States for the First Time

Apple will begin manufacturing the wee desktop computer in Houston later this year.

Houston, we have some production. Apple announced Tuesday that it will be making its Mac Mini desktop computer in the US for the first time, shifting some manufacturing from its Asian plants, and will also increase AI server production at its existing Houston facility.

The California-based tech giant also said it will open the Advanced Manufacturing Center, a 20,000-square-foot facility where students, supplier employees and businesses will receive hands-on training in making Apple products, in the same city.

In its statement, Apple said the new Mac Mini production and increased AI server production will create thousands of jobs.

The Mac Mini will be manufactured at a 220,000-square-foot facility in North Houston. The other main building at that site is where Apple makes AI servers. The new Advanced Manufacturing Center will also be built at that location. The buildings are owned by Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturing giant that Apple initially partnered with in 2000 to produce the iMac.

Sabih Khan, Apple’s chief operating officer, said there will still be Mac Mini production in Asia after the Houston plant is up and running, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

By beginning Mac Mini production in the US, Apple is furthering its pledge to invest $600 billion in the US over four years. That promise, made last August, was in response to pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration to increase manufacturing in the US and to avoid Trump-imposed tariffs.

Apple also said it is sourcing more than 20 billion chips from 24 US factories, and that, by the end of 2026, every new iPhone and Apple Watch will have cover glass made at Corning’s facility in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

CEO Tim Cook said his company is «deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing,» with production of the Mac Mini marking one step toward that commitment.

The Mac Mini, which initially went on sale in 2005 — CNET was there from the beginning — is the cheapest of the Apple desktops ($599 at the Apple store). It’s known as a BYODKM, an acronym coined by the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs that stands for «Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, Mouse.» In other words, the Mac Mini — only 5 inches long and 5 inches wide — comes without those peripherals, making it cheaper for those who already have them.

«The Mini can fit in your hand and be everything from an everyday home office computer to a full-on professional content-creation machine,» CNET’s Joshua Goldman wrote in his review of the latest model in 2024.

Goldman also said the Mac Mini is a «perfect pairing» with Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI system that is integrated with iPhones, iPads and Macs.

Market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates that the Mini accounts for less than 5% of its global Mac sales, according to the WSJ report.

Apple will also ramp up production of its AI servers. The company said manufacturing is ahead of schedule, months after beginning production in October. The servers are used in Apple data centers around the US.

Technologies

Waymo’s Autonomous Ride Service Expands to 4 New Cities

The company has doubled its operating area for robotaxi services over the past several months.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 25, #990

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 25 #990.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is kind of tough. That purple category, once again, expects you to spot hidden words that are related to each other within four of the grid words. It’s fun once you see the answer, but tough to figure out on your own. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: What a parent should do for a child.

Green group hint: «____ my dear Watson.»

Blue group hint: Some go by Jim.

Purple group hint: Look for hidden words.