It looks like I’ll be paying up for a bet on the naming system for the next Snapdragon chip. Qualcomm isn’t calling it the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 afterall. Instead, it’s going with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The next flagship is already being teased as the most advanced chip yet.
At the same time, Xiaomi has already confirmed its upcoming Xiaomi 17 series, which will launch the chip, given their long-standing partnership. But where there’s innovation, there’s always competition. MediaTek is also preparing to reveal the Dimensity 9500 the very same week as Qualcomm’s chip.
Dimensity 9500 is only days away
A new 17-second video, which has now amassed 90,000 views, has surfaced on MediaTek’s Weibo account. The teaser clip shows very stylized and dramatic fiery cosmic visuals framing the components of the upcoming Dimensity 9500 chip.
Key highlights appear in text praising the chip as a “super-intelligent AI processor NPU” and “GPU graphics processor”. You'll also see “2025 MediaTek Dimensity flagship chip launch event announcement”. The video is accompanied by a post that confirms it, saying that the chip is coming on September 22, 2025, at 2 PM China time. That's only six days from now.
MediaTek hasn’t spilled much beyond these details, but that’s why we have leakers like Digital Chat Station. The Weibo-based tipster laid out a detailed spec sheet that now paints a clearer picture of what’s coming.
The chip is built on TSMC’s 3-nanometer N3P process and features a CPU cluster with one 4.21GHz “Travis” core, three 3.5GHz “Alto” cores, and four 2.7GHz “Gelas” cores. It's also expected to ship with a Mali-G1 Ultra MC12 GPU using a redesigned architecture to boost ray tracing performance while cutting power draw.
The leak also points to a beefed-up NPU 9.0 capable of hitting 100 TOPS, paired with 16MB of L3 cache and 10MB of SLC for efficient task handling.
Related: Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Leak Exposes MediaTek Performance
MediaTek is breaking boundaries with future innovations
Surprisingly, the Dimensity 9500 reportedly integrates Vivo’s V3+ Image Signal Processor, which could give the brand’s next flagships exclusive camera advantages right at the silicon level. Typically, phone makers use whatever ISP comes standard with a chip. Now, Vivo will hardwire its own imaging technology directly into the silicon to give its phones a head start.
Camera processing will be optimized at the chip level, rather than solely in software. It could mean better photo quality or even exclusive features that competitors using the same Dimensity chip won’t have. The Vivo X300 and X300 Pro could be the first from them to pioneer these capabilities.
In other news, MediaTek has also finalised its first chip on TSMC’s 2-nanometer process. Mass production is planned for late 2026, and should place them among the first companies in the world to move into the 2nm era.
TSMC’s 2nm process introduces nanosheet transistors that take many leaps ahead of today’s finFET design. Chips will be smaller and consume less energy. It also promises 1.2x higher logic density, up to 18% better performance at the same power, or 36% less power at the same performance. Beyond smartphones, it will target AI PCs, cars, and data centers.
