Qualcomm Pursues 2nm Manufacturing Deal with Samsung, Launches 3nm Snapdragon X2 Plus
Qualcomm is negotiating with Samsung Electronics to contract-manufacture two-nanometre chips, CEO Cristiano Amon told Korea Economic Daily, marking a potential shift in its wafer production strategy. At CES 2026, the company unveiled its Snapdragon X2 Plus platform featuring 3 nm Oryon cores for AI PCs, extending its semiconductor roadmap beyond mobile phones.
1. Qualcomm Enters Contract Manufacturing Talks with Samsung for 2nm Chips
Qualcomm has initiated discussions with Samsung Electronics to secure contract manufacturing capacity for its next-generation two-nanometre (2nm) chips, CEO Cristiano Amon told Korea Economic Daily. If an agreement is reached, Samsung Foundry would produce Qualcomm’s advanced system-on-chips, marking Qualcomm’s first major outsourcing of leading-edge logic. The 2nm node promises a 15% performance boost and up to 30% lower power consumption compared with the current 3nm generation. Qualcomm expects to tape out its first 2nm test chips by late 2026 and ramp to volume production in the second half of 2027, pending foundry capacity and process yield targets above 80%.
2. CEO Cristiano Amon Identifies Robotics as the Next AI Growth Vector
Speaking at CES 2026 in Las Vegas with Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon declared robotics the next major opportunity in artificial intelligence. Amon highlighted Qualcomm’s recent investments in AI inference accelerators and edge-AI platforms, citing a 45% year-over-year increase in demand for AI-capable chips in industrial automation. He noted that current Snapdragon AI engines, with up to 20 TOPS of neural processing performance, are already powering autonomous warehouse robots and smart factory applications. Amon also reiterated that Qualcomm does not consider the AI segment to be in a speculative bubble, pointing to multiyear design wins with three major automotive OEMs for ADAS and cockpit AI.
3. Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon X2 Plus Platform to Drive Expansion into AI PCs
At CES® 2026, Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon X2 Plus compute platform, targeting AI-powered Windows laptops and Chromebooks. The X2 Plus integrates four custom Oryon CPU cores built on TSMC’s 3nm node, delivering up to 40% faster single-thread performance and up to 25% longer battery life compared with its predecessor. It also combines an Adreno-series GPU and a Hexagon-series AI accelerator capable of 30 TOPS of on-device inference. Qualcomm projects that over 20 PC models based on Snapdragon X2 Plus will ship by mid-2026, supporting features such as always-on voice assistants, real-time video noise suppression and fingerprint-resistant displays.