CES 2026: Qualcomm Introduces Snapdragon X2 Plus Chipset for Copilot+ PCs

Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon X2 Plus chipset for Copilot+ PCs on Monday, right before the start of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026. The newest entrant in the Snapdragon X series processors for artificial intelligence (AI)-powered PCs comes with several upgrades in performance and power efficiency, and joins the X2 Elite system-on-chipset (SoC), which was launched in September 2025. The company said the chipset is designed for Windows laptops and 2-in-1 PCs that fall under Microsoft's Copilot+ PC category, which requires a minimum threshold of neural processing unit (NPU) performance for local AI inference.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Plus Platform Unveiled

In a press briefing, the San Diego-based chipmaker stated that the Snapdragon X2 Plus chip will feature Qualcomm's third-generation Oryon CPU, paired with an NPU with up to 80 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of performance to handle complex AI tasks on the device. The first wave of consumer hardware using the chip is expected to arrive in early 2026.

The Oryon architecture has been a mainstay since the company's first PC platform, Snapdragon X Elite, which was launched in 2024. Now, its third-generation architecture in the X2 Plus chip gets a custom-designed Arm-compatible core system that is tuned for low-power, sustained performance, rather than short burst workloads. The company did not reveal the core arrangement, clock speeds, or the cache sizes at the time of writing this.

AI performance gets the biggest upgrade when compared to the predecessor. The Snapdragon X Plus SoC offered 45 TOPS of performance, but X2 Plus takes it to 80 TOPS with a dedicated NPU. This capability essentially highlights the amount of complex AI tasks that can be completed locally on-device, without having to rely on server-based compute.

Qualcomm also claimed that the 10-core variant of the chipset gets 35 percent higher single-core CPU performance, 17 percent higher multi-core CPU performance, 29 percent more GPU performance, and 78 percent increased NPU performance when compared to 2024's X Plus platform. Without going into specifics, the tech giant also claimed that the Snapdragon X2 Plus offers multi-day battery life and advanced security.