Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite: Solid Upgrades, Uncertain Future in the AI PC Market

Qualcomm’s 2025 Snapdragon Summit unveiled the company’s newest flagship PC platform, the Snapdragon X2 Elite, aimed squarely at the emerging AI PC category. With substantial improvements in CPU, GPU, and neural processing unit (NPU) performance compared to the previous generation, Qualcomm is framing the X2 Elite as the engine for next-generation computing experiences on Windows on Arm devices. However, despite the technical advances, the company faces an uphill battle. The broader AI PC market remains sluggish, competition from Intel and AMD is intensifying, and Qualcomm has yet to solve the software ecosystem challenges inherent to its Arm-based approach.

Benchmarks for the Snapdragon X2 Elite show significant gains in efficiency and throughput, particularly with the NPU now surpassing 80 TOPS of performance. On paper, this more than meets Microsoft’s minimum standard of 40 TOPS for Copilot+ PCs. Yet market reaction has largely been muted. PC upgrades have become routine events, with incremental benchmark improvements no longer generating the type of enthusiasm or replacement demand that once defined the market.

Adding to this challenge is Qualcomm’s positioning. Unlike Apple, which designs complete Arm-based platforms tightly integrated with the macOS, Qualcomm must rely on Microsoft’s Windows on Arm ecosystem, an environment still plagued by app compatibility issues. This continues to limit the perceived value of Qualcomm-powered laptops compared to Intel and AMD x86 devices.

While Qualcomm has introduced new user-facing features, including security functions like Snapdragon Guardian and enhanced camera-based AI, PC makers face the more pressing challenge of dealing with soaring component costs. DRAM and SSD prices have jumped by as much as 25%, for example, driven by demand for high-bandwidth memory in data centers.

Ironically, this dynamic has pushed OEMs towards older, lower-cost processors rather than incentivizing investment in premium AI-enabled platforms like Lunar Lake or Snapdragon X2 Elite. For brands under pressure to achieve a specific price point, an affordable Raptor Lake chip paired with standard memory remains more attractive than a higher-priced AI PC configuration whose benefits have yet to be clearly demonstrated to consumers.

At Computex 2024, Qualcomm, Intel, AMD, and Microsoft all announced developer programs to foster AI PC innovation by leveraging NPUs. The hope was to seed new applications that could establish unique value propositions for laptops beyond raw processing power. More than a year later, results have been underwhelming. Demonstrations at Qualcomm’s summit, such as AI-assisted translation via glasses and cooking suggestions via connected peripherals, appeared gimmicky rather than transformative. Many of these capabilities can already be achieved through existing apps and cloud-based solutions.

The lack of clear, must-have applications has prevented AI PCs from breaking through as a compelling new category. Lenovo and Acer both report shipment penetration rates of 30–40% for AI PCs, but sales momentum remains weaker than expected due to consumer indifference. The critical factor for most buyers is still price, not AI integration.

Qualcomm executives remain confident in the long-term viability of their PC strategy, claiming that the consumer experience, not just benchmarks, will define the success of the platform. The company has set ambitious targets of $4 billion in compute revenue and a 12% share of the PC processor market by 2029.

However, building out a robust Windows on Arm ecosystem will take time, as will convincing OEMs and consumers to pay premiums for hardware that delivers benefits not yet obvious in everyday use. Unless compelling edge AI applications, or broader agentic AI platforms that automate and integrate tasks more seamlessly, emerge soon, Qualcomm may find that its technological advantages are offset by market inertia.

The Snapdragon X2 Elite represents an incremental step forward in Qualcomm’s PC roadmap rather than a dramatic breakthrough. Performance improvements alone will not be enough to drive adoption in a stagnant market weighed down by rising costs and skeptical consumers. The company’s future may hinge less on benchmarks and more on whether agentic AI becomes a mainstream reality over the next few years.

If that shift occurs, Qualcomm’s investments in Arm-based architectures, NPUs, and cross-platform expertise could pay off handsomely. Until then, the X2 Elite and the AI PC remain promising technologies still searching for their killer application.