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Qualcomm on Monday said it plans to launch processors designed for data centers to power artificial intelligence, which will link to Nvidia’s chips.
Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) have become a critical component in data centers used to train huge AI models that power applications like chatbots. They are often paired with a central processing unit (CPU) — a market dominated by Intel and AMD.
Qualcomm said it is planning to launch a custom CPU for the data center that can connect to Nvidia’s GPUs and software. A link to Nvidia’s infrastructure is key for any player hoping to crack into the data center given the relevance of the U.S. chip giant’s semiconductors for AI.
The announcement actually marks a re-entry into the data center market for Qualcomm after previous efforts last decade bore little fruit.
In 2021, Qualcomm acquired Nuvia, which designs processors based on Arm designs and has been key to the U.S. tech titan’s efforts with data center CPUs.
“I think we see a lot of growth happening in this space for decades to come, and we have some technology that can add real value added,” Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, told CNBC in an interview on Monday. “So I think we have a very disruptive CPU.”
Amon said the company will make an announcement about the CPU roadmap and the timing of its release “very soon,” without offering specifics.
The data center CPU market remains highly competitive. Big cloud computing players like Amazon and Microsoft already design and deploy their own custom CPUs. AMD and Intel also have a strong presence.
Addressing the competition, Amon said that there will be a place for Qualcomm in the data center CPU space.
“As long as … we can build a great product, we can bring innovation, and we can add value with some disruptive technology, there’s going to be room for Qualcomm, especially in the data center,” Amon said. “[It] is a very large addressable market that will that will see a lot of investment for decades to come.”
Last week, Qualcomm signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi-based AI frim Humain to develop data centers, joining a slew of U.S. tech companies making deals in the region. Humain will operate under Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks at Computex 2025 in Taipei on May 19, 2025. Cheng Yu-chen | Afp | Getty Images
Getting into the data center is part of a broader strategy from Qualcomm to diversify its business, which has traditionally been dominated by sales of processors and modems for smartphones. However, Apple, a key customer of Qualcomm, is starting to design its own modems, while other players are looking at self-developed processors.
Mario Morales, group vice president of semiconductors and enabling technologies at the International Data Corporation, said that Qualcomm’s entrance into the data center space is a good move to help its diversification — and that the market is large enough for a new entrant.
“Over the coming five years, the data center will be the fastest growing segment for the semi market as a whole and in the last three years, we’ve seen the tremendous growth from Nvidia, but companies like Qualcomm have not benefited from that growth because they haven’t had a position in the space,” Morales said.
“I think this announcement begins to change that, and I expect that some of this technology that they bring to this specific market will probably likely come over the next couple years, because it does take some time to establish a product roadmap and begin to engage with customers.”
Under CEO Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm has moved into chips for cars as well as PCs — a market historically dominated by Intel.
Amon said on Monday during at presentation at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan, that there are now more than 85 PC designs that are on sale or in development with Snapdragon X Series chips, which were first announced in 2023. Amon also said the company will announce a new PC chip during its annual summit in September.
Qualcomm is pitching its chips as power efficient and capable of running AI processes on a device, rather than in the cloud, where they are typically done now. Some of the touted advantages of on-device AI include faster AI apps and more security, since data doesn’t need to leave a piece of hardware.
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