Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon confirmed in an interview with Korea Economic Daily that the company is in active discussions with Samsung Electronics to outsource production of its next-generation two-nanometre chips. The move would mark Qualcomm’s first major foundry partnership for cutting-edge process nodes since 2019, when it shifted 5 nm volumes to third-party fabs. By securing Samsung’s capacity, Qualcomm aims to mitigate supply constraints projected in 2027 and achieve targeted annual output of over 10 million units of two-nanometre SoCs for premium smartphones and AI accelerators.

Speaking at CES 2026 on January 5 in Las Vegas, Amon told Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde that robotics represents the next significant opportunity in artificial intelligence. He highlighted that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Neural Processing Units (NPUs) already support real-time vision and sensor fusion in drones and warehouse robots, and he forecast a $25 billion robotics market by 2030. Amon also reiterated Qualcomm’s confidence in sustained AI investment, dismissing bubble concerns, and outlined the company’s commitment to autonomous driving partnerships with leading automakers targeting Level 4 capabilities by 2028.

At CES 2026, Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon X2 Plus Platform, its first 3 nm-based SoC designed specifically for AI-driven PCs. The X2 Plus integrates three custom Oryon CPU cores running at up to 3.2 GHz, a sixth-generation Adreno GPU, and an enhanced NPU delivering up to 30 TOPS for on-device inferencing. Qualcomm projects the platform will offer up to 20 percent greater performance per watt compared with its prior generation, translating into up to 15 hours of sustained AI workloads on laptops with 60 Whr batteries. Executives indicated the X2 Plus will be sampling with OEMs in Q2 2026 and entering production by Q4 to capture the emerging AI PC segment.