Xiaomi unveils an in-house chip to rival Qualcomm and MediaTek
Xiaomi joins the rank of smartphone makers that are developing their own silicon chip.
The mobile chipset space hasn’t changed much in years. Qualcomm and MediaTek have settled into a comfortable duopoly, delivering predictable annual upgrades—incremental performance bumps, tighter power efficiency, and the occasional AI upgrade.
At the same time, smartphone makers have been trying to take more control by developing their own chips, but with mixed success. Samsung’s Exynos line and Google’s Tensor series have yet to match the consistency or performance of the market leaders. Only Apple’s A-series chips are consistently ahead in performance, but they’re locked into Apple’s ecosystem.
Now, Xiaomi is stepping into the high-end silicon space with a flagship chipset designed to go head-to-head with the flagship offerings from Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Apple.
Called the Xring O1, it marks Xiaomi’s return to chip design, seven years after its first in-house attempt with the budget-oriented Surge S1 in 2017.
On paper, the Xring O1 holds its ground. Built on TSMC’s second-gen 3nm node, it features a 10-core CPU based on Arm’s v9.2 architecture. It boasts two Cortex-X925 cores running at 3.9GHz and a 16-core Arm Immortalis-G925 GPU —the same model found in MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400, though Xiaomi uses more shader cores. It also features a six-core NPU delivering 44 TOPS, matching the AI throughput of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite. This makes the O1 not just a bold internal project, but a chipset that, on paper, competes directly with the industry’s best.
David Adubiina
Deployment
But it’s not just raw specs that matter—deployment counts. Xiaomi is betting big by putting the Xring O1 at the heart of its latest flagship phone, the Xiaomi 15S Pro, and its premium tablet, the Pad 7 Ultra.
Both exclusive to China: the Xiaomi 15S Pro is largely identical to last year’s 15 Pro, with one major difference—it drops the Snapdragon chip in favour of Xiaomi’s own silicon. The Pad 7 Ultra, with its 14-inch OLED display and massive 12,000mAh battery, gives the chip a chance to prove itself in a larger form factor.
In other words, Xiaomi is confident enough to swap out Qualcomm silicon in its flagship and still call it an upgrade.
There are however, still limits. The O1 relies on an external MediaTek modem rather than a fully integrated solution. Battery testing shows that devices using the O1 fall slightly behind Snapdragon-equipped models in endurance, due to the added power draw from the separate modem.
That said, Xiaomi’s CPU efficiency is already close to its rivals, and the fact that Xiaomi is even in this conversation is significant. The company has invested heavily in building out its chip division, reportedly with more than 2,500 engineers and a decade-long investment plan exceeding $6.9 billion.
Xiaomi’s ambitions go beyond phones. It also launched the Xring T1, a chip for wearables, now inside the eSIM version of its Watch S4. It’s a quiet but important move—Xiaomi is building a full-stack platform, one chip at a time.
The Bigger Picture
This move to develop its own silicon signals potential trouble for long-time suppliers like MediaTek and Qualcomm. While Xiaomi isn’t trying to cut ties just yet, having recently extended its partnership with Qualcomm for global devices, it’s telling a different story at home. In China, Xiaomi is actively testing its own chips, and early results suggest it’s on the right track.
If Xiaomi manages to integrate a modem in future versions and keep performance competitive, this could become a real problem for Qualcomm. Not many companies have the scale, resources, and motivation to challenge the chip giants. Xiaomi does—and they’ve just started.
