Qualcomm expanded its premium-tier Snapdragon range with its latest smartphone platform, equipment pitched as broadening the capabilities of high-end devices which it expects to see in commercial products in the coming weeks.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 mobile platform is designed to handle growing use of AI on smartphones, offering interfaces with the technology using device hardware including microphone and sensors.

Qualcomm stated its AI Engine optimises access to agentic assistant services, a set-up tipped to provide user experience benefits.

Chris Patrick, SVP and general manager of mobile handset, said the platform puts “users at the centre of their mobile experiences”.

OnePlus was highlighted as being close to launching devices using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. Other vendors lined up include Honor, Meizu, Motorola, vivo and iQOO.

The platform runs a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU which it stated offers up to a 46 per cent improvement in AI performance compared with its previous-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

Qualcomm’s Oryon CPU provides peak speeds of up to 3.8GHz and it recorded a 36 per cent improvement in performance along with a 76 per cent gain in web browsing responsiveness.

The platform employs Qualcomm’s Adreno GPU using a sliced architecture to up clock speeds, and boost gaming and graphics performance by 11 per cent.

Connectivity options include 5G and Bluetooth 6.0.