Despite developing its own 3nm XRing O1 chip, Xiaomi remains firmly aligned with Qualcomm. The company is expected to be the first to debut Qualcomm’s next-generation flagship processor, the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 (model SM8850).
The Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 will be officially introduced during the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit 2025, which runs from September 23 to 25. According to early leaks, the Xiaomi 16 and Xiaomi 16 Pro will be the first smartphones to feature the new chip. These models may even launch immediately after the announcement, targeting availability ahead of China’s National Day holiday.
The new processor features a 4.6GHz Oryon CPU, a 1.2GHz Adreno 840 GPU, and is manufactured using TSMC’s advanced 3nm N3P process. It also includes a dedicated 16MB GPU cache, a move that suggests major gains in both performance and energy efficiency.
While the XRing O1 chip is expected to remain exclusive to select Xiaomi models such as the S series and certain tablets the flagship Xiaomi 16 series continues to depend on Qualcomm’s silicon. Meanwhile, rivals like Honor, Realme, and iQOO are racing to join the launch window, setting the stage for fierce competition as brands move quickly to leverage Qualcomm’s most powerful mobile platform to date.
