The rumor mill has it that the Galaxy S8 could be the exclusive device to be powered by the Snapdragon 835 for some time after Qualcomm’s chip becomes available to manufacturers, but we expect Samsung to use its Exynos chipset for most markets as it has done for the last two years. The Exynos 8895 has been expected to be the chip that will succeed the Exynos 8890 that powers the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy Note 7, but it looks like Samsung will be releasing the SoC as the Exynos 9 series.

Samsung Exynos’ Twitter account is teasing its next chipset with the tagline “Discover cloud 9 with Exynos”, suggesting the upcoming chip could be part of the Exynos 9 series. Like the Snapdragon 835, this chip should be manufactured using Samsung’s 10 nm process, although other specs are currently unknown. If we go by information available for the Exynos 8895, the Exynos 9 SoC could have the Mali-G71 GPU, which offers benefits in 4K and virtual reality content. When it comes to performance, the Exynos 9 chipset should match or surpass the Snapdragon 835 while generating less heat at the same frequencies.

Of course, nothing is confirmed at this point, and there hasn’t exactly been a lot of information available about Samsung’s next flagship SoC. Stepping the version number up to 9 does make sense given the chip will power an important device like the Galaxy S8, and it will be very interesting to see what Samsung has been working on to take on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835.

What do you make of Samsung’s teaser?