Qualcomm on Thursday unveiled two artificial intelligence (AI) chips for data centers that are expected to be available next year, as it looks to expand its business beyond the smartphone market.
The announcement had a positive impact on the market, with Qualcomm shares up 20%.
The stock’s rise reflects market confidence in Qualcomm’s AI efforts as the company gears up to compete with data center AI powerhouse Nvidia.
The new chips, the AI200 and AI250, are designed with higher memory capacity to run AI or inference applications. The AI200 is expected to be commercially available in 2026, while the AI250 will follow in 2027.
Global investment in AI chips is increasing as cloud providers, chipmakers and enterprises race to build infrastructure to support large language models, chatbots and generative AI tools.
Qualcomm said the new chips support commonly used AI frameworks and tools and help enterprises save costs.
While competition with Nvidia is intensifying, the high cost of switching chip suppliers and the superior performance of Nvidia processors are making it difficult for new entrants to attract consumers.
The company also said Humain, an AI startup founded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will deploy 200 megawatts of its new AI rack starting in 2026.
Qualcomm is now one of the world’s largest suppliers of modern chips that enable smartphones to connect to wireless data networks.
