Qualcomm Unveils Dual 2nm Snapdragon Chips as Shares Slip 1%

Qualcomm has unveiled two new smartphone chips built around agentic AI, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. The chips will be built into smartphones from premium Android makers, with Qualcomm's big push centered on on-device AI capabilities. Qualcomm is making this push alongside Intel, AMD and Nvidia, while Apple has been pushing on-device AI in its new laptops, and HP and Dell are also talking up the approach. The pitch is that running AI models directly on a device keeps user information private and avoids the need to sign up for a cloud provider. Qualcomm has been in this space for a while, having previously debuted PC chips for Windows laptops, and the company is now emphasizing GPU, CPU and neural processing unit cores because running AI agents on a device requires a strong CPU to avoid processing delays.

Dell Technologies launched its $999 XPS Googlebook with Gemini at the center of the experience, taking its premium laptop brand into Google's push for AI-powered PCs. Shares rose about 1.4% to $556.55 Wednesday, based on Tuesday's $548.92 close. The 13-inch machine pairs a Snapdragon X Elite processor with up to 32GB of memory and an on-device AI processor, and brings Android phone files, messages and apps onto the laptop. Dell says the battery can last up to 16 hours of streaming under its test conditions, and according to Reuters' report on the wider Googlebook launch, Dell is one of several PC makers joining Google's premium laptop effort. Dell has offered no sales or margin target for the new XPS, and the picture puts Dell's $556.55 share price 140.89% above its $231.04 GF Value estimate.

Apple is pitching its new Macs as a way for businesses to run AI models without paying for every cloud request, and the hardware is now on sale. Apple says its Mac Studio can hold up to 512GB of unified memory, giving large models room to run on the device, and at a launch demonstration four linked Mac Studios ran a trillion-parameter model from one wall outlet, according to Reuters. Shares were down about 0.7% at $337.22, compared with the previous close of $339.75, and at that price Apple trades 17.6% above the displayed GF Value of $286.75. Local AI could give Macs a fresh selling point, but the economics depend on how heavily customers use the machines, since a large upfront purchase saves money only if the cloud bills it replaces are large enough to cover the hardware and the work of managing it.