- Qualcomm has presented its Wi-Fi 8 product portfolio
- New FastConnect 8800 chips offer (up to) twice the performance of their predecessors
- The new Dragonwing consumer networking platforms will bring the many benefits of Wi-Fi 8 to home routers and mesh networking systems.
While Wi-Fi 8 is still quite a ways off, at least in terms of having it on your laptop or phone, there have already been many announcements about this 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 bring Wi-Fi 8 to laptops (and, of course, tablets and phones), as well as Bluetooth 7.0.
The company notes that FastConnect 8800 is the first mobile solution to have a 4×4 Wi-Fi radio configuration, and that this facilitates new heights in terms of wireless speeds. In fact, compared to Qualcomm’s previous-generation FastConnect chip in Wi-Fi 7, the 8800 offers (up to) double the performance.
That means potential Maximum speeds of up to 11.6 Gbps, as tested in Qualcomm labs, versus up to 5.8 Gbps as seen on the FastConnect 7800 (with a 2×2 radio configuration). The new 8800 chip will also provide three times the Gigabit wireless range.
Qualcomm further notes that Bluetooth speeds are seeing a big boost from 2Mbps to 7.5Mbps with this new chip compared to the previous FastConnect 7800 (thanks to Bluetooth’s high data throughput or HDT).
The new FastConnect chip also features Proximity AI and Ultra Wideband 802.15.4ab to identify the location of other devices (or pair with them automatically).
Qualcomm also announced new Dragonwing networking platforms for businesses and consumers. The main tiers in the latter 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 now testing all of these products with customers and anticipates they will be commercially available in late 2026.
Gautam Sheoran, senior vice president and general manager of Connectivity, Broadband and Networks at Qualcomm, said: “Next-generation networks and devices not only need to be AI-native, they need a new generation of intelligent, high-performance connectivity. Qualcomm Technologies’ 8th generation Wi-Fi products are the complete package: faster speeds, greater reliability, greater range and powerful AI.”
Analysis: strengths of Wi-Fi 8
This next-generation wireless standard isn’t about speed. In fact, Wi-Fi 8 doesn’t offer any speed boost 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 generation standard is faster.
Wi-Fi 8 is designed to improve the reliability of your Wi-Fi connection, especially in high-signal environments where it will intelligently skip to avoid getting stuck by interference.
You’ll also get better range with Wi-Fi 8 and better handling of mesh networks in terms of avoiding speed drops when moving around the house (when transitioning from one node (router or satellite) to another can cause speed issues). Performance at the edge of the signal (where it is weakest) will also be improved. On top of that, Wi-Fi 8 offers considerably lower latency than Wi-Fi 7.
So there’s a lot to look forward to, plus the Dragonwing platform has an ‘AI network engine’ for “real-time QoE optimization”, which means tuning everything with AI to ensure you get the best and most stable performance (QoE means quality of experience) from your router and Wi-Fi 8 devices. This is intended to be especially beneficial for heavier Wi-Fi usage, such as gaming or online streaming, or using a VR headset, for example.
However, before you get too excited hearing all this, as I mentioned at the beginning, Wi-Fi 8 is still a long way off. While Qualcomm talks about these Wi-Fi 8 chips being in devices later this year, the reality is that they won’t be a major force in many routers, laptops, tablets, and phones until much closer to the end of the decade.
However, we apparently have a lot to look forward to in terms of wireless performance as the 2020s progress.
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