Qualcomm Technologies shares closed more than 11% higher after it continued its diversification away from the smartphone market with the announcement that it would develop two artificial intelligence (AI) chips for data centres.
The American company, the world's largest supplier of modem chips, said the Qualcomm AI200 and AI250 chip-based accelerator cards and racks were expected to be commercially available in 2026 and 2027, respectively.
Qualcomm shares (NASDAQ: QCO) closed $18.74 (11.09%) higher at $187.68, capitalising the company at US$202.28 billion (A$308.57 billion).
“With Qualcomm AI200 and AI250, we’re redefining what’s possible for rack-scale AI inference,” Senior Vice President and General Manager, Technology Planning, Edge Solutions & Data Center Durga Malladi said in a news release.
Qualcomm, whose modem chips allow smartphones to connect to wireless data networks, has been reducing its reliance on the smartphone market and has entered the personal computer market in the last two years.
Investment in AI chips has soared as cloud providers, chipmakers, and enterprises rush to build infrastructure capable of supporting complex, large language models, chatbots and other generative AI tools, according to Reuters.
“Building off the Company’s NPU (neural processing unit) technology leadership, these solutions offer rack-scale performance and superior memory capacity for fast generative AI inference at high performance per dollar per watt—marking a major leap forward in enabling scalable, efficient, and flexible generative AI across industries,” the company said.
Malladi said the new AI infrastructure solutions empowered customers to deploy generative AI at an unprecedented total cost of ownership, while maintaining the flexibility and security modern data centres demanded.
“Our rich software stack and open ecosystem support make it easier than ever for developers and enterprises to integrate, manage, and scale already trained AI models on our optimised AI inference solutions,” Malladi said.
“With seamless compatibility for leading AI frameworks and one-click model deployment, Qualcomm AI200 and AI250 are designed for frictionless adoption and rapid innovation.”
