The new chip should arrive in smartphones as early as December 2022 and into the first half of 2023.

Qualcomm announced its new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip at its Snapdragon Summit 2022 yesterday. This is the latest premium smartphone chip from the company, and it will start showing up in new devices by the end of 2022.

“Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 delivers groundbreaking AI, unparalleled connectivity, and champion-level gameplay, enabling consumers to enhance every experience on their most trusted device,” said Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handsets.

Here are the main highlights regarding Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile platform:

Better performance: Qualcomm promises 35% faster CPU performance, 25% faster graphics rendering, and 40% better power efficiency compared to the Gen 1 chip.

Ray-tracing support: Mobile gamers will be able to enjoy hardware-accelerated ray tracing in games that support it.

New AI engine: Qualcomm’s Hexagon processor brings 4.35x faster AI performance than its predecessor, and it will support faster natural language processing and advanced AI camera features.

5G modem with AI processor: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X70 5G modem comes with a dedicated AI processor to improve speed, latency, and power efficiency.

Wi-Fi 7 support: Qualcomm claims that Wi-Fi 7 support will double Wi-Fi 6 speeds up to 5.8 Gbps.

Unsurprisingly, Qualcomm is already partnered with the vast majority of the industry, including OnePlus, Asus, Motorola, and Sony. Samsung is notably missing from the list, though we know the two companies extended their partnership earlier this year. While we’ll have to wait until earlier next year to see how the Galaxy S23 series benefits from this chip, new hardware from other various partners are set to launch before the end of this year.