- Qualcomm has introduced its portfolio of Wi-Fi 8 products
- The new FastConnect 8800 chips pack (up to) twice as much as their predecessors
- New Dragonwing 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 having it on your laptop or phone, there have already been a lot of announcements around the technology – and now, at MWC 2026, Qualcomm has unveiled 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 to feature 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-gen FastConnect chip on Wi-Fi 7, the 8800 packs (up to) twice the performance.
It means potential peak speeds of up to 11.6 Gbps, as tested in Qualcomm’s labs, versus up to 5.8 Gbps as seen in 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 get a huge boost 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 boasts Proximity AI and Ultra Wideband 802.15.4ab for pinpointing the location of other devices (or automatically pairing with them).
Qualcomm further announced new Dragonwing networking platforms for enterprises and consumers. The mainstream 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 testing all of these products with customers now, and expects them to be commercially available by late 2026.
Gautam Sheoran, who is the SVP & GM of Connectivity, Broadband and Networking at Qualcomm, stated that: “Next generation networks and devices must not only be AI-native, but they need a new breed of intelligent, high-performance connectivity. Qualcomm Technologies’ Wi-Fi 8 generation of products is the whole range, AI, higher speeds and faster speeds.”
Analysis: Wi-Fi 8 strengths
This next-generation wireless standard isn’t about speed. In fact, Wi-Fi 8 carries no speed boost at all over Wi-Fi 7 – although the FastConnect 8800 chip is much faster than its predecessor, that’s because it has a more powerful Wi-Fi radio configuration, as mentioned. It’s not because the next-gen standard is actually faster.
What Wi-Fi 8 is designed to do is improve the reliability of your Wi-Fi connection, especially in signal-dense environments, where it intelligently hops around to avoid being tied down by interference.
You also get better range with Wi-Fi 8 and better handling for mesh networks in terms of avoiding speed drops when moving around the house (when switching from one node – router or satellite – to another can cause erroneous speed hiccups). Performance at the edge of the signal (where it is weakest) will also be strengthened. On top of that, 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 having a ‘Network AI Engine’ for “real-time QoE optimization”, which means fine-tuning everything with AI to ensure you get the best and most stable performance – QoE, meaning Quality of Experience – from your Wi-Fi 8 router and devices. It aims to be of particular benefit for more intense Wi-Fi use, such as online gaming or streaming, or using VR headsets for example.
But before you get too excited to hear all this, as I mentioned at the start, Wi-Fi 8 is still a long way off. While Qualcomm is talking about these Wi-Fi 8 chips being in devices late this year, the reality is that it won’t be a mainstream force in many routers plus laptops, tablets and phones until much closer to the end of the decade.
It seems we have a lot to look forward to in terms of wireless performance as the 2020s roll on.
TechRadar is on the show floor for this year’s 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 more.
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