‘Faster speeds, higher reliability, longer range, and powerful AI’: Qualcomm introduces Wi-Fi 8 chips with a startling speed boost at MWC 2026
- Qualcomm presented its Wi-Fi 8 product portfolio
- New FastConnect 8800 chips deliver (up to) twice the performance of their predecessors
- Dragonwing’s new consumer networking platforms will bring the many benefits of Wi-Fi 8 to home routers and mesh networking systems.
Although Wi-Fi 8 is still a long way off, at least in terms of installing it on your laptop or phone, plenty of announcements have already been made around the technology – and now, at MWC 2026, Qualcomm has revealed its portfolio of offerings around the next-generation wireless standard.
Qualcomm has announced its FastConnect 8800 chips to deliver Wi-Fi 8 to laptops (and of course tablets and phones), as well as Bluetooth 7.0.
The company notes that the FastConnect 8800 is the first mobile solution with a 4×4 Wi-Fi radio configuration, enabling new heights in wireless speeds. Indeed, compared to Qualcomm’s previous generation FastConnect chip on Wi-Fi 7, the 8800 will offer (up to) twice the performance.
This means potential peak speeds of up to 11.6 Gbps, as tested in Qualcomm’s labs, compared to up to 5.8 Gbps as in the FastConnect 7800 (with a 2×2 radio configuration). The new 8800 chip will also offer three times greater Gigabit wireless range.
Qualcomm further notes that Bluetooth speeds are significantly increased, from 2 Mbps to 7.5 Mbps with this new chip compared to the previous FastConnect 7800 (thanks to Bluetooth High Data Throughput or HDT).
The new FastConnect chip also features Proximity AI and Ultra Wideband 802.15.4ab to pinpoint the location of other devices (or automatically pair with them).
Qualcomm further announced new Dragonwing networking platforms, aimed at businesses and consumers. The main tiers in this regard are the Dragonwing N8 and F8, which are platforms designed to bring Wi-Fi 8 to home routers and mesh networking systems.
Qualcomm says it is currently testing all of these products with customers and expects them to be commercially available in late 2026.
Gautam Sheoran, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Connectivity, Broadband and Networking at Qualcomm, said: “Next-generation networks and devices not only need to be AI-native, but they also need a new generation of intelligent, high-performance connectivity. Qualcomm Technologies’ generation of Wi-Fi 8 products represent the whole package: faster speeds, higher reliability, longer range, and powerful AI.
Analysis: the strong points of Wi-Fi 8
This next-generation wireless standard isn’t about speed. In fact, Wi-Fi 8 offers no speed increase over Wi-Fi 7 – although the FastConnect 8800 chip is much faster than its predecessor, but that’s because it has a more robust Wi-Fi radio setup, as noted. It’s not because the next-gen standard is actually faster.
Wi-Fi 8 is designed to improve the reliability of your Wi-Fi connection, especially in signal-heavy environments where it will intelligently hop to avoid getting bogged down in interference.
You’ll also benefit from better range with Wi-Fi 8 and better management of mesh networks in terms of avoiding speed drops when moving around the house (when transitioning from one node – router or satellite – to another, this can cause speed issues). Performance at the edge of the signal (where it is weakest) will also be improved. Additionally, Wi-Fi 8 offers significantly lower latency than Wi-Fi 7.
So there’s a lot to look forward to, as well as the Dragonwing platform featuring a “network AI engine” for “real-time QoE optimization,” which means fine-tuning everything with AI to ensure you’re getting the best, most stable performance — QoE meaning quality of experience — from your router and Wi-Fi 8 devices. This should be especially useful for heavier Wi-Fi use, like online gaming or streaming, or the use of VR headsets for example.
However, before you get excited hearing all this, as I mentioned at the beginning, Wi-Fi 8 is still a long way off. While Qualcomm is talking about these Wi-Fi 8 chips being in devices later this year, the reality is that they won’t become a dominant force in many routers as well as laptops, tablets and phones until the end of the decade.
However, we apparently have a lot to look forward to in terms of wireless performance as the 2020s progress.
TechRadar is present at the show this year MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona, Spain, and we’ll be covering the latest news from some of the biggest names in mobile, computing, fitness and much more.
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