During Samsung Unpacked 2025, we heard that the Galaxy S25 series phones have a "custom" (sort of) Qualcomm Snapdragon chip to power its features. That's pretty cool — we know Snapdragon chips perform well and we've seen what building an AI-tailored SoC allows in Google's Pixel phones. The 3nm Qualcomm SM8750-AB Snapdragon 8 Elite paired with a Samsung-spec NPU should work out well if Samsung can tame the heat it will generate.
But I'm going to guess that it was awfully expensive. Here's the rub — Samsung could have made that chip in its own chip foundry, built to its own specs, and tailored perfectly for the Galaxy S25. Instead, it paid extra on top of Qualcomm's hefty prices.
