For a long time, the “brain” inside Samsung’ s flagship smartphones has been a bit of a team effort. While Samsung built the overall chip, they often had to look elsewhere for the muscle behind the graphics. Most recently, this meant collaborating with AMD to bring high-end gaming features to the Galaxy lineup. However, it seems that Samsung is finally ready to step out of the shadows and claim full ownership of its mobile GPU technology with a view to the Exynos 2028. Meanwhile, the Exynos 2600 ‘s GPU powering the Samsung Galaxy S26 shows the first steps in that direction.
Exynos 2800 GPU to use Samsung’s architecture; Exynos 2600 GPU—Xclipse 960—designed entirely by Samsung
This makes the company one of the few elite tech giants, alongside names like Apple and Qualcomm, capable of designing its own graphics hardware. The company already gave clues about this in mid-year by signing a Huawei veteran to lead the new GPU project .
Moving to an in-house design isn’t just about bragging rights. It allows Samsung to fine-tune how the graphics processor talks to the rest of the phone. For the average user, this translates to better efficiency. This means you could get high-performance gaming or smooth multitasking without draining the battery as quickly. It also makes on-device AI faster, since modern GPUs are key to process smart features without relying on the cloud.
A vision beyond smartphones
Developing an in-house GPU will allow Samsung to cut ties with external frameworks altogether. By removing the need to pay licensing fees to other companies, Samsung can reduce production costs while gaining total creative freedom over its hardware.
This new “Made by Samsung” graphics era won’t be limited to phones. A custom GPU lets you access a much wider range of tasks. This technology could power everything from smart glasses and self-driving car software to cutting-edge robots. To make this vision come true, the company has been investing a lot into hiring top engineers and industry veterans to make sure their future chips can compete with the best in the world.
The tech world is keeping a close eye on the Exynos 2600 as it goes into mass production. The switch to a 2nm process should already make things more efficient—although some design decisions may put this advantage at risk . However, the real test will be how well this new “Designed by Samsung” GPU works in real life.
