At a global company like Qualcomm, the workday doesn’t start in just one place. Engineers join early-morning code reviews with teammates halfway across the world. Marketing leads juggle global campaigns, moving from one Teams call to the next. Sales teams rush through airports, squeezing in edits to presentations before boarding their flights.

For a company whose charter is to connect everyone and everything intelligently, the PC plays a big role in empowering its employees to do so. It’s the anchor for a company of 49,000 people, each pushing projects forward in real time. But for too long, the devices powering that work weren’t keeping pace with the speed of Qualcomm’s culture.

Booting up meant staring at a loading screen while the clock ticked toward the next meeting. Switching between applications during a presentation could risk a freeze or slowdown. Long video calls were accompanied by the sound of loud fans. Keyboards ran hot after hours of multitasking. And for employees on the road, battery anxiety was constant—every outlet in an airport lounge felt like a lifeline.

The irony wasn’t lost on anyone. This was the company behind Snapdragon, the platform transforming smartphones, cars, and connected devices around the world. Its engineers had solved performance and power efficiency in mobile—delivering sleek, powerful, AI-ready experiences that fit in the palm of your hand.

A simple but radical idea began to take hold: If Snapdragon could solve these problems—battery life, performance, AI—for mobile, why couldn’t it do the same for PCs?

The plan was ambitious… to say the least.

For starters, it meant designing a completely new kind of processor, one that could compete with the major players that had dominated the PC market for decades. Challenge accepted.

Then came the next test: moving a quarter of the company’s global PCs to the new Windows on Snapdragon. Thousands of employees across teams and time zones became test pilots for the next generation of enterprise laptops.

But this wasn’t just another hardware refresh. It was a way to live the Snapdragon experience inside Qualcomm Incorporated and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.—and to capture insights at scale. As the IT leaders put it, this was more than a rollout. It was a chance to gather a treasure trove of data and feedback the company could use to guide product teams and future planning.

To make sense of all that feedback, Qualcomm turned to Nexthink, a platform that helps IT teams measure and improve the digital employee experience (DEX). It gave Qualcomm deep visibility into everything from boot times to application performance, turning day-to-day frustrations into measurable, actionable insights.

The difference showed up right away. On their first boot-up, employees noticed the change—PCs powered by Snapdragon were ready in under 20 seconds. The old machines took more than a minute. For someone rushing into a call or needing to pull up slides on the spot, that felt huge.

5x faster boot time for Windows on Snapdragon

And the speed stuck around. Unlike older laptops that slowed down once unplugged, PCs powered by Snapdragon stayed just as fast on battery. Whether in a meeting room, on a train, or mid-flight, performance held steady.

For road warriors, that was game-changing. Sales leaders could fly from San Diego to Tokyo, work the entire way, and land without ever looking for a charger. Engineers could keep code builds, video calls, and simulations running all at once—without watching their device grind to a halt.

But rolling out a new platform at this scale wasn’t without hiccups. The IT team had to learn new processes for a different silicon architecture. Some legacy applications needed updates, and a few employees had to adjust their workflows.

Thankfully, Nexthink gave IT the visibility they needed. Issues were spotted and resolved quickly—often before employees even realized there was a problem. What could have been roadblocks instead turned into chances to streamline opportunities for improvement.

All in all, Nexthink’s data told the same story that employees were sharing. Windows on Snapdragon devices scored nearly 20% higher in overall satisfaction compared to the older PCs.

Windows on Snapdragon scored nearly 20% higher in overall satisfaction.



Battery life nearly doubled as well. Even with a full stack of IT tools installed, PCs powered by Snapdragon carried employees through long flights, marathon meetings, and client visits without the constant stress of hunting for an outlet or carrying an AC/DC adapter.

As an innovative tech company aimed at transforming the future of work, Qualcomm doesn’t treat AI as a side project. It’s part of everyday work. Engineers test AI models, marketers generate AI-assisted content, and HR uses AI translation to create documents for teams around the world.

PCs powered by Snapdragon keep that momentum going. With the industry’s first NPU to reach 45 TOPS on Windows at launch, several dozens of AI-powered experiences could now run locally—with the latest Snapdragon X Series offerings now reaching up to 80 TOPS.

World’s first NPU for laptops at 45 TOPs

The switch also sped up Qualcomm’s move to Windows 11. Because Snapdragon was built for it, the transition went off without a hitch. IT gained modern management tools. Employees got a premium-feeling experience that was cooler, quieter, and more capable from the start.

And every PC powered by Snapdragon is a Copilot+ PC, which means features like Live Translation, Windows Studio Effects, and Co-Creator are already in employees’ hands—capabilities will land first on Snapdragon.

What began as a radical idea—use the company’s own technology to revolutionize the PC—proved to be a breakthrough. PCs powered by Snapdragon aren’t just proving themselves in the enterprise; they’re redefining what employees and customers can expect from their devices.

Snapdragon is defining the future of PCs, and Qualcomm is all in. With more devices rolling out to employees in the months ahead, the company isn’t just keeping pace—it’s setting the pace.