MediaTek officially unveiled its new Dimensity 9500s and Dimensity 8500 mobile chipsets on January 15, 2026, marking their debut in the competitive Android smartphone market. The Dimensity 9500s, built on a 3nm process, is positioned as a powerful option for 'flagship killer' smartphones, aiming to deliver near-flagship performance at a more accessible price point. It features an octa-core CPU with one Arm Cortex-X925 ultra core clocked up to 3.73GHz, three Cortex-X4 premium cores, and four Cortex-A720 performance cores. The chip also integrates an Immortalis-G925 GPU with ray tracing support and a flagship NPU optimized for generative AI and multi-modal models. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, alongside support for 320MP camera sensors and 8K 60fps Dolby Vision HDR video recording. The 9500s is seen as a direct competitor to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Complementing the 9500s, the Dimensity 8500 is an energy-efficient 4nm chipset targeting the upper mid-range segment. It features an all-big-core CPU design with eight Cortex-A725 cores clocked up to 3.4GHz, promising improved performance and power efficiency over its predecessor. The Mali-G720 GPU in the Dimensity 8500 offers up to 25% better peak performance and 20% lower power consumption, also bringing hardware ray tracing to its segment. This chip includes MediaTek's 8th-gen NPU (880) for advanced AI tasks. Both chipsets support LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage, ensuring smooth multitasking and rapid app launches. The Redmi Turbo 5 Max, expected to launch in India as the POCO X8 Pro Max, is among the first devices confirmed to feature these new chipsets, indicating their relevance to the Indian market.