Taiwan’s MediaTek unveiled a new smartphone chip on Tuesday made using TSMC’s most advanced manufacturing process as it goes after the premium handset market with silicon able to run more AI features on the device itself.
The move is part of a broader effort to gain ground on US rival Qualcomm in premium phones, where higher-priced devices and AI features offer chip makers better margins. MediaTek’s market value passed Qualcomm’s earlier this year.
MediaTek claimed the Dimensity 9600 Pro is its first mobile processor built on TSMC’s 2-nanometre process, though Apple last week unveiled the A20 Pro for its iPhone 18 Pro line-up that also using a 2nm process from TSMC.
MediaTek also introduced the Dimensity 9600M, made on TSMC’s 3nm process and aimed at a broader slice of the flagship market. The first phones running the two chips will launch soon, the company said. It has previously supplied chips to Chinese customers including Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.
The 9600 Pro includes a dedicated AI processor, known as a neural processing unit, that MediaTek said can handle more complex generative AI applications on the handset. The company said the NPU delivered a 51% improvement over the previous generation in the time taken to process a user’s prompt before a model starts generating a response, but gave no further detail.
Flagship segment
JC Hsu, corporate senior vice president at MediaTek, said the company was working with handset makers on ways to limit the effect of higher component costs on consumers as the AI boom strains supply chains. Even so, Hsu saw opportunity as advanced hardware and new AI features make higher price tags more common.
“As the overall market moves to higher prices, I believe there is still room for us to increase our share of the flagship segment,” Hsu said.
MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro specs
MediaTek, one of the world’s largest designers of smartphone chips, has also been pushing its AI business into data centre and custom-chip products as technology companies pour billions of dollars into AI infrastructure. Its first AI accelerator designed for a major US cloud service provider is expected to enter mass production in the fourth quarter.
The company raised $3.9-billion last month through a convertible bond sale. Nvidia invested $3.5-billion in the offering, and Alphabet, a long-standing MediaTek partner in AI infrastructure, also took part. — Wen-Yee Lee, (c) 2026 Reuters
