At the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026 expo, Qualcomm has unveiled its first Elite-tier Snapdragon Wear chip, the Snapdragon Wear Elite, for smartwatches. It will power Samsung’s next-generation Galaxy Watch models.

The announcement is unexpected and suggests that Samsung’s chip dual-sourcing strategy, which it already follows for Galaxy smartphones, could expand to its smartwatch lineup. Qualcomm has developed this new chip in collaboration with Google, Motorola, and Samsung.

The Snapdragon Wear Elite is Qualcomm’s first 3nm processor designed specifically for wearables. It is also the company’s first Snapdragon Wear chip to adopt a big.LITTLE architecture, featuring one high-performance CPU core and four power-efficient cores. Qualcomm claims this new design delivers up to 5x faster single-core CPU performance compared to the previous-generation Snapdragon Wear chip.

Qualcomm’s new wearable chip includes a GPU that is up to seven times more powerful than its predecessor and is capable of driving Full HD displays at a smooth 60 frames per second.

This configuration is very similar to Samsung’s Exynos W1000 chip, which is also built on a 3nm process and uses one high-performance core alongside four efficiency cores.

The Snapdragon Wear Elite also features a built-in Hexagon NPU that supports AI models with up to 2 billion parameters running entirely on the device. This allows advanced on-device processing for tasks such as fitness and health tracking, life logging, digital assistants, language translation, and voice transcription to run directly on the device.

In addition, the chip includes a dedicated low-power eNPU designed for tasks such as always-on activity recognition, voice assistant keyword detection, and noise suppression.

Connectivity is another highlight. The chip supports GNSS, including GPS and similar satellite systems, NB-IoT for direct satellite communication, 5G RedCap, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 6.0, and ultra-wideband.

Qualcomm says the Snapdragon Wear Elite can deliver up to 30% longer battery life thanks to its improved architecture and advanced manufacturing process. The chip also supports fast charging. Devices powered by batteries ranging from 300mAh to 600mAh can charge up to 50% in just 10 minutes.

The first smartwatches powered by this new chip are expected to launch within the next few months. It is likely that the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 will use the Snapdragon Wear Elite, while standard models such as the Galaxy Watch 9 may continue using Samsung’s in-house Exynos W1000 processor.

Both upcoming Galaxy Watches could launch in July 2026 alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 8 and the Galaxy Z Fold 8.

InKang Song, Executive Vice President and Head of the Technology Strategy Team at Samsung MX, said, “Samsung and Qualcomm Technologies share a long history of advancing what’s possible in mobile computing, and we are thrilled to extend this partnership into the wearable category. By integrating the new Snapdragon Wear Elite platform, the next-generation Galaxy Watch will be an even more holistic wellness companion. This marks an important step in our ongoing efforts to deliver more efficient and personalized experiences, right from your wrist.“