Qualcomm just launched its new Oryon CPUs and the Snapdragon 8 Elite at the Snapdragon Summit in Maui. While these chips might be designed for phones and not PCs, the next-gen Oryon CPU core within those chips could be headed to PCs in a future iteration of the Snapdragon X Elite. Referring to the new CPU as just a "second-generation Oryon CPU core," Qualcomm isn't giving it a definitive name -- but the company is making a substantive change: adding "prime" cores while also tweaking the performance of its existing performance cores. To be clear, Qualcomm hasn't explicitly stated that the new Oryon cores are headed to PCs, or even that a PC version of these new Oryon cores would have the same configuration as the Snapdragon X Elite. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is headed to phones, with many of Qualcomm's existing customers building smartphones around the new chip.

Qualcomm launched its latest Snapdragon processor on Tuesday for the next crop of top-tier Android smartphones--with artificial intelligence infused throughout the chip to boost photography, sound, connectivity, gaming and security. At its Snapdragon Summit event in Hawaii, Qualcomm made artificial intelligence the centerpiece of its marketing pitch for its new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 as it strives to build the Snapdragon name into a globally recognized brand. Artificial intelligence generally refers to computer systems that can simulate human intelligence to a certain extent. It is among the hottest fields in technology today. Qualcomm has long worked on artificial intelligence and machine learning, but mostly behind the scenes.

Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mobile processor for smartphones at the Qualcomm Tech Summit in Hawaii late on Tuesday, adding substantially more performance and AI-powered features to 2022 smartphones. However, one of those may be controversial. While you may be used to your phone always listening for commands, are you ready for its camera to be always on, too? In an interesting twist, Snapdragon 8 phones will even be able to mint NFTs. Now the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is poised to help launch even more, beginning in the fourth quarter of this year.