Every year Qualcomm holds its annual Snapdragon Tech Summit where it reveals the latest technologies and platforms the company has been working on over the previous 12 months - sometimes longer. The event is held in Hawaii and it spans a couple of days with a main keynote taking place on the first day, followed by a number of smaller sessions that dive a little deeper into some of the announcements.
The biggest focus of the event is usually the reveal of the latest flagship Snapdragon mobile platform, but there are often a number of other announcements that are worth paying attention to as well. Here is everything you need to know about the Snapdragon Summit 2023 and what we are expecting.
When is the Snapdragon Tech Summit?
The Snapdragon Summit takes place between 24-26 October for this year, which is a little earlier than usual. The event used to be in December but it has slowly been creeping forward. As we said, there is traditionally a main keynote, followed by a few smaller announcements over the remaining days.
The main keynote will take place on Tuesday 24 October for the 2023 Snapdragon Summit. These are the times across the world:
- 10:00 HDT (Hawaii Local Time)
- 12:00 PT (West Coast USA)
- 15:00 EDT (East Coast USA)
- 20:00 BST (UK)
- 21:00 CEST (Europe)
- 03:00 +1 SGT (Singapore / HK / Taiwan)
How can I watch the Snapdragon Summit 2023?
Qualcomm typically hosts the Snapdragon Summit on its website and it will be doing that for 2023 too. The stream of the main keynote will also be available on Qualcomm's YouTube and Twitter (now X) channels and there's a hashtag - #snapdragonsummit - that will deliver all the news as it happens. We will also host the stream here when it becomes available and you'll be able to rewatch it here too if you happen to be busy when it is on initially.
You can also go to Qualcomm's website and sign up for email alerts about the event and announcements that come out of it.
What is expected to be announced at the Snapdragon Summit 2023?
The name of the event typically gives things away a little. The Snapdragon Tech Summit is all about Snapdragon. That doesn't just come in the form of mobile platforms though, it's the name behind a range of technologies, including platforms for headsets, and 5G connectivity.
In 2022, we saw the reveal of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile platform, which went on to power some of the best flagship smartphones of this year. We also saw a special version of that chipset for Samsung called Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, resulting in the Qualcomm platform running the Galaxy S23 devices globally including Europe, rather than only in the US. It was expected that this was a multi-year deal, though there have also been reports to suggest that Samsung is switching back to Exynos for its future Galaxy S24 range, at least in some regions so that's something of a bit of a mystery for now.
The company also announced the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 chip during the 2022 Summit and it revealed advancements to its Snapdragon Sound platform including Dynamic Spatial Audio, improved latency and lossless audio. A number of headphone manufacturers use the Snapdragon Sound platform, including Bose, but you do need to have a pair of headphones with the Snapdragon Sound platform as well as a phone running the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip to benefit from the Snapdragon Sound advancements from last year.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
For 2023, we expect to see the reveal of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 platform, which is rumoured to boast big GPU performance upgrades. Leaks claim the chipset could offer 50 per cent better graphics performance than its predecessor. There are also reports that one of the first devices to run on the platform will be the Xiaomi 14.
Snapdragon Series X
Qualcomm has already announced the rebranding of its PC processors, which will now be called Snapdragon Series X. The company hasn't taken the lid off all the information surrounding these chips though, with plenty left to reveal at the Snapdragon Summit. The Snapdragon X platform is built on the Oryon CPU, which is a result of Qualcomm's $1.4 billion acquisition of Nuvia in early 2021. We've got a feature detailing everything we know so far about the Snapdragon X series, but this is definitely an area we are expecting to learn a lot more about during the Summit.
Snapdragon AR and Snapdragon Sound
We are also expecting to hear more about Qualcomm's AR chip platform - likely called the AR Gen 2 and more about Snapdragon Sound during the Summit. As with 2022, it is likely that any new Snapdragon Sound advancements will not only require compatible headphones with the correct platform inside, but a phone running the new mobile platform too. Still, you never know.