Qualcomm today announced the Snapdragon Wear Elite Platform at MWC 2026. The new platform focuses on personal AI and is designed for next-generation wearables, including smartwatches and fitness bands.
“Snapdragon is transforming personal computing by enabling a new category of Personal AI devices. Spanning a broad range of form factors, these devices are no longer simply extensions of the smartphone, but active participants in a distributed AI network across mobile, compute, XR, wearables, and more,” Alex Katouzian, Executive Vice President and Group General Manager, Mobile, Compute, & XR (MCX), Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., said. “Snapdragon Wear Elite delivers powerful edge AI with an integrated NPU architecture and advanced sensor processing, enabling true, Personal AI experiences. This is our next step toward our vision of the “Ecosystem of You”, where intelligence seamlessly travels with the user, learning and adapting to their context across their personal devices.
Specs-wise, the Snapdragon Wear Elite is built on a 3nm process and a disaggregated core platform. Compared to its predecessors, Qualcomm says the CPU is fives faster, while the GPU is seven times more powerful. Adding on to that is the new NPU and eNPU, both of which have a combined performance of 10 TOPS.
Other onboard features include Bluetooth 6.0 support, a new Micro-Power Wi-Fi feature that enables always-on Wi-Fi connectivity at low-power, and a first-of-its-kind multi-mode connectivity architecture with 5G redCap, UWB, GNSS, and NB-NTN.
Qualcomm has said that the first commercial devices powered by Snapdragon Wear Elite are expected to be available within the next few months.
Moving on, Qualcomm also announced that it had entered into a new partnership with leading industry players to accelerate the deployment of 6G, with commercial systems for the new spectrum ready from 2026 onwards.
Global partners supporting this coalition include Airtel, Amazon, Asus, BT Group, Cisco, Dell, e&, Ericsson, FPT Corporation, Fujitsu/1finity, Google, HP, HPE, HUMAIN, KDDI, KT, LG Electronics, LG Uplus, Meta, Microsoft, Motorola, NEC Corporation, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Reliance Jio, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, SK Telecom, Snap, Inc., Stellantis, Swisscom, Tejas Networks, Telstra, TIM Group, T-Mobile, Viettel Group, VNG, and YTL. Read global partner executive quotes here.
