Qualcomm’s Next-Gen Snapdragon X Series Chips May Arrive Next Year

Next week, Microsoft and other PC manufacturers are expected to reveal the first Windows on ARM devices powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips. Microsoft is holding a Surface and AI event on May 20 where we should see the Qualcomm-powered consumer versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6. Asus also teased some AI PC news on May 20, and there could be more announcements from other PC manufacturers next week.

If Intel and AMD have already released new chips for “AI PCs,” Qualcomm has teased breakthrough AI performance with the Hexagon NPU included in its new Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips. Qualcomm said that it created the world’s fastest NPU for laptops delivering 45 TOPS (Tera Operations per Second) of AI performance. The company’s new chips for Windows on ARM PCs should also deliver much better performance per watt compared to x86 chips, with the Snapdragon X Plus delivering up to 37% faster CPU performance while consuming up to 54% less power compared to an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU.

While expectations regarding Qualcomm’s latest silicon are currently really high, a leaked Dell XPS roadmap obtained by VideoCardz (via The Verge) revealed that the Snapdragon X “Oryon v2” and “Oryon v3” could arrive in 2025 and 2027, respectively. To be clear, “Oryon” is the name of the CPU in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips.

According to the leaked Dell roadmap, the company is expected to use Qualcomm’s Oryon v2” chips in new laptops coming in 2026. The Oryon v3 chip, however, may not arrive in Dell laptops until 2028.

A two-year gap between the Snapdragon X Series v2 and v3 would be surprising considering that Apple and AMD refresh their CPU offerings every year. On the Apple side, there was just a six-month gap between the company’s M3 and M4 chips, with the latter making its debut in the new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro launching this week.

While Windows on ARM PCs have been exclusively using Qualcomm chips so far, Qualcomm’s exclusivity deal with Microsoft may finally end next year. This means that we may see ARM-based chips for Windows PCs from other companies, including Nvidia, AMD, or Mediatek.