Qualcomm Incorporated

Qualcomm has joined Advantech and other partners in the new WEDA edge AI ecosystem, an alliance aimed at supporting scalable deployments across varied hardware by standardising tools and reference designs for industrial and enterprise use cases. Qualcomm is also participating in up to 29 cross-sector agreements between US and Vietnamese firms announced during a recent state visit. The company develops and licenses wireless technologies that underpin mobile devices and connected equipment, and the moves tie its core wireless IP to new industrial and enterprise computing uses. Whether the WEDA ecosystem projects and Vietnam partnerships turn into disclosed design wins or revenue targets in segments like industrial IoT and AI edge devices over the next few reporting periods, rather than staying at the memorandum of understanding stage, remains to be seen.

Qualcomm has given Amazon an equity-linked incentive to deepen their AI-infrastructure partnership, with Amazon able to eventually purchase as much as $60 billion of Qualcomm data-center products while purchase-linked warrants could hand Amazon roughly $4 billion of Qualcomm shares at $161.26 each. Qualcomm shares gained approximately 2.1% to $188.64 Thursday, a level 7.37% above the stock's $175.69 GF Value. The warrant value represents roughly 6.7% of the maximum purchasing framework, directly tying Amazon's buying activity to Qualcomm's equity story. The two companies are also working together on custom AI inference silicon and optical connectivity capable of reaching 1.6 terabits per second. No minimum purchase commitment, delivery timetable or margin profile has been disclosed.

Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, said on CNBC that he supports AI safety measures but believes recent fears are being exaggerated to advance a political agenda, adding that he wants an investigation into who is behind the negativity and where the money is coming from. Altimeter's second-quarter 13F filings show the fund opened new positions in several technology and AI-related companies, including Qualcomm and Micron Technology. Altimeter bought 1.88 million Qualcomm shares valued at about $347.9 million as of June 30, a position accounting for 3.54% of the fund's reported US equity portfolio. It also acquired 209,520 Micron shares worth roughly $241.8 million, representing 2.46% of the portfolio. Bulls argue the market still views Qualcomm as a smartphone-chip company and is overlooking its potential as an AI data-center supplier, pointing to its High Bandwidth Compute architecture, which Qualcomm says delivers 6 times more bandwidth per watt than high-bandwidth memory and which Microsoft and Meta have agreed to use. The main risk is that HBC remains unproven, with the first chips set to arrive with Qualcomm's upcoming AI250 accelerator and no testing yet at scale in real data centers.

A series of agreements between US and Vietnamese companies in sectors including energy, technology, aviation and finance are expected to be announced next week to coincide with the New York visit of Vietnam's top leader, Communist Party General Secretary and State President To Lam. The plans were revealed by officials and documents obtained by Reuters. An internal planning document lists 29 agreements that could be announced at a business conference in New York on the 23rd, which Lam will also attend. The contents of the document are subject to change, and it does not set out the specific details of the planned agreements. US energy companies Murphy Oil and Chevron are expected to announce agreements with Vietnamese state oil and gas company PetroVietnam, while ExxonMobil is expected to announce an agreement with PetroVietnam Refinery and Petrochemical, Vietnam's second-largest refinery. Vietjet, Vietnam's largest private airline, is expected to announce it will lease up to 22 aircraft from four leasing companies, comprising 17 Boeing 737s and five Airbus A321neos. SpaceX is also set to announce an agreement to provide its Starlink satellite internet service to 120 Vietjet aircraft. The planning document also includes an agreement between US-based Meta and Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, and one between US semiconductor giant Qualcomm and Vietnamese telecom company VNPT. Visa, Mastercard and Citibank are also expected to announce agreements with partners in Vietnam's domestic financial and hospitality services sectors.

Qualcomm shares rose about 3.1% to $185.82 Tuesday morning even as MediaTek unveiled a new flagship chip aimed at its premium Snapdragon franchise. Reuters reported that MediaTek's Dimensity 9600 Pro uses 2-nanometer manufacturing and claims a 51% improvement in initial generative-AI prompt processing. Qualcomm's fiscal third-quarter revenue totaled $9.9 billion, with handset-chip sales contributing $5.1 billion, or roughly 51.5% of the total, while automotive revenue surged 61% to a record $1.6 billion and combined automotive and internet-of-things revenue rose 28%. The stock trades at $185.815 against a GF Value of $175.82, about 5.68% above GuruFocus' estimate of fair value. The next test is whether Qualcomm can defend Snapdragon economics while its newer automotive, AI software and data-center businesses keep scaling.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, reported consolidated net revenues for August 2026 of approximately NT$514.81 billion, up 10.1% from July 2026 and 53.3% from August 2025. Cumulative revenues for January through August 2026 reached NT$3,386.87 billion, a 39.3% increase over the same period in 2025, as the company continued to benefit from strong demand for its leading-edge process technologies. High-performance computing remained TSMC's largest platform, at 66% of second-quarter 2026 revenues with 20% sequential growth, while Internet of Things, Digital Consumer Electronics and Automotive revenues rose 4%, 5% and 15%, respectively, from the prior quarter. Advanced nodes of 7-nanometer and below accounted for 77% of second-quarter wafer revenues, with 2-nanometer contributing 3% and 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer accounting for 30%, 33% and 11%. Management pointed to robust AI-related demand from cloud service providers and emerging Agentic AI CPU demand, with work underway across x86, ARM-based and RISC-V architectures. Separately, GlobalFoundries signed a long-term manufacturing agreement with Monolithic Power Systems for its Singapore 300mm facility and finalized a $375 million R&D award with the U.S. Department of Commerce's CHIPS Research and Development Office, while Qualcomm entered a multi-generation collaboration with Amazon on customized AI data-center silicon and optical connectivity up to 1.6T.

Cirrascale Cloud Services announced the production release of the Cirrascale Inference Platform, a complete software stack for enterprise-grade AI inference, at the AI Infra Summit in Santa Clara. The platform lets enterprises run open-source models, their own private models, and closed model ecosystems from a single serverless platform, including Google Gemini delivered on premises through Google Distributed Cloud and operated by Cirrascale. Its model and hardware selection layer automatically routes each request to the right model and runs it on the best available accelerator across NVIDIA, AMD, Tenstorrent, and Qualcomm with no code changes required to switch, and teams can fine-tune models on their own private data without that data leaving their environment. The platform includes a turnkey private chat experience connected to a company knowledge base, built-in controls to manage AI spend across teams, and governance guardrails for agentic workloads, aligned with HIPAA, SOC 2, and FedRAMP requirements where required. The Cirrascale Inference Platform is available now across Cirrascale's U.S. and international regions.

Qualcomm's September 8 SEC filing ties Amazon warrants to commercial arrangements, binding orders and actual purchases that can reach a maximum of $60 billion, a ceiling rather than a guaranteed order. Qualcomm issued Amazon a warrant for up to 25 million shares at $161.26, with 3.75 million shares vested at issuance from initial commitments, and the companies will work on server chips, systems and optical connectivity. For Qualcomm, the attraction is customer validation for a data-center push that management wants to scale toward $15 billion of annual revenue by fiscal 2029, though much of the equity vests only if future purchasing milestones are met. The timing matters because Apple is moving modem work in-house, reducing a long-standing source of Qualcomm revenue. Insider Monkey counted 95 hedge funds holding Qualcomm in Q2 2026, up from 71 in Q1, while Amazon ownership climbed to 369 funds from 353 and Apple slipped to 169 funds from 170. At the August 31 settlement, about 33 million Qualcomm shares were sold short, 3.21% of float, with 3.31 days to cover.

Qualcomm is collaborating with Cornelis Networks on new AI data center networking and programmable compute infrastructure. Cornelis Networks has introduced its Active Compute Fabric, an open architecture focused on scale-up and scale-out AI networking with embedded compute. The partnership extends Qualcomm Technologies' recent AI infrastructure work beyond its collaboration with Amazon into broader data center networking projects, though this Active Compute Fabric collaboration with Cornelis captures only one piece of what is shaping Qualcomm's wider AI infrastructure story. Qualcomm develops and licenses wireless technologies worldwide, and the move into AI-focused networking builds on its semiconductor expertise for large data center customers, giving the business another entry point into AI infrastructure alongside handset and other connectivity products. The tie-up reinforces the part of Qualcomm's narrative that leans on data center entry, accelerated by the Alphawave acquisition, to reach new AI inference and edge workloads, while also surfacing the open question of whether early-stage AI and data center pushes can justify heavier research and development spending without squeezing earnings amid competition from players like Nvidia and AMD.

Verizon announced the expansion of its 6G Innovation Forum with nine new members and reported successful pre-standard field trials of Integrated Sensing and Communication and an AI Sports Companion prototype. Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Intel, Keysight Technologies, MediaTek, NVIDIA, Palo Alto Networks, Rohde & Schwarz and VIAVI Solutions have officially joined the forum, which was launched last year and already includes founding members Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia, Meta and Qualcomm Technologies. In one trial staged at a major international soccer celebration in Dallas, Texas, Verizon and Samsung used a single 5G base station and 40MHz of CBRS spectrum to track radio variations from six Samsung Galaxy smartphones, with Samsung's AI RAN and edge AI platform Network in a Server generating real-time crowd-density heatmaps on commercial phones and a tablet. In a second trial at Qualcomm's San Diego campus, the companies used 100 to 400MHz of millimeter-wave spectrum and four synchronized Transmission and Reception Points to track an airborne drone and moving ground vehicles while maintaining uninterrupted 5G Standalone communications to a phone user on the ground. Verizon also showcased a prototype AI Sports Companion application running on the Verizon Edge Network with Meta AI glasses, a locally optimized Small Language Model, an NVIDIA DGX Spark and statistics from SportsDataIO, letting users ask verbally for real-time player statistics, live score interpretations and game-winning probabilities. Verizon said forum members will continue sharing learnings from future demonstrations involving ISAC, digital twins, robotics, AI and advanced wearables, and it views the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles as the ultimate interim proving ground on the road to commercial 6G deployment, supported by its dedicated 6G Lab already established in the host city.

Apple took the wraps off its new iPhone lineup, including the foldable iPhone Duo starting at $1,999 for the 256 GB option and running up to 2 TB, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro at $1,199 and iPhone 18 Pro Max at $1,299. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang reiterated he is confident in growing revenue 70% next year, noting the upcoming Vera Rubin system is priced at roughly $40,000 versus roughly $25,000 for Blackwell and $18,000 for Hopper, while the Justice Department is investigating whether Nvidia structured its $20B licensing deal with AI chip startup Groq to avoid antitrust scrutiny. Oracle reported fiscal first-quarter results and guidance that topped Wall Street estimates by a significant margin, with cloud revenue at $11.6B, up 62% year-over-year, infrastructure revenue soaring 121% to $7.4B, and application revenue rising 10% to $4.2B. Adobe also reported second-quarter results and guidance above estimates, though analysts noted a slowdown in annual recurring revenue growth amid its freemium AI strategy. In other news, Qualcomm and Amazon announced a partnership to build next-generation AI data center infrastructure, and Microsoft plans to more than triple its global data center capacity to more than 38 gigawatts by 2032, up from about 12 gigawatts currently.

24/7 Wall St. rates Qualcomm a buy with a $239.79 price target, implying 35.45% upside from the current $176.88 quote, at 90% model confidence. The call rests on Qualcomm's Q3 FY26 revenue of $9.947 billion, which beat consensus, and automotive revenue that grew 61% year over year to $1.588 billion, its 23rd consecutive double-digit growth quarter, even as non-GAAP EPS of $2.21 narrowly missed on memory and wafer input costs. Momentum accelerated after Qualcomm issued warrants to Amazon to acquire $4 billion worth of the chipmaker's stock as part of an AI infrastructure deal, and CEO Cristiano Amon has committed to more than $24 billion in revenue across automotive and IoT plus more than $15 billion in data center by fiscal 2029, nearly doubling the prior target. The bear case lands near $200.49, with handset revenue down 20% in the third quarter and management expecting roughly a 50% decline in Apple revenue from the September to December quarter, while memory and wafer inflation compressed operating income by 41.13% year over year. Broadcom, the aspirational benchmark, posted $29.591 billion in Q3 FY26 revenue with AI semiconductor sales of $16.7 billion, up 221% year over year, and carries a $1.72 trillion market cap versus Qualcomm's $188.9 billion.

Qualcomm has struck a long-term partnership with Amazon under which Amazon could purchase as much as $60 billion of Qualcomm's AI data-center chips and related products. As part of the agreement, Qualcomm granted Amazon warrants worth roughly $4 billion, allowing Amazon to buy Qualcomm shares at $161.26 per share, with the warrants vesting as Amazon purchases Qualcomm products. The two companies will develop custom AI chips focused on AI inference, along with high-speed optical connectivity for data centers, and Qualcomm is targeting $15 billion in annual data-center chip revenue by 2029. Amazon joins Microsoft and Meta as major cloud customers working with Qualcomm on custom AI chips, though the $60 billion figure is a potential purchase commitment rather than guaranteed revenue, and Qualcomm still must commercialize chips that can compete with Nvidia. Amazon's annualized custom-chip revenue run-rate exceeded $25 billion at the end of the June quarter, and Reuters reported separately that Amazon was preparing its first sterling bond sale as hyperscalers seek funding for AI infrastructure costs.

RBC Capital Markets raised its price target on Qualcomm to $180 from $160 after the chipmaker's agreement with Amazon, saying the relationship could give Qualcomm a stronger position in the data-center AI market. Analyst Srini Pajjuri kept a Sector Perform rating but highlighted the potential scale of Amazon's commitments, which cover Qualcomm server processors, related technology, and manufacturing services, with purchase commitments and payments potentially reaching $60 billion. RBC estimates the opportunity could eventually generate about $6 billion in additional annual revenue over the next decade if all related milestones are achieved, compared with Qualcomm's earlier data-center revenue targets of about $300 million for fiscal 2026 and $5 billion for fiscal 2027. Pajjuri also pointed to Amazon as one of Qualcomm's major hyperscaler customers, potentially giving the company a path into custom AI silicon, with revenue from the relationship expected to begin in the December 2026 quarter and some programs already in production.

Qualcomm, Intel, Amkor, Nova, and FormFactor shares traded up in the afternoon session after Qualcomm announced a multi-generational product collaboration with Amazon Web Services to develop custom AI data center infrastructure, while ASML, TSMC, and Intel achieved key milestones in next-generation chip manufacturing. Qualcomm's partnership with AWS focuses on co-designing successive generations of custom AI chips for high-performance inference and data center workloads, aiming to strengthen AWS's internal hardware ecosystem, reduce operating costs, and improve energy efficiency. Simultaneously, ASML and TSMC announced a joint initiative to transition from traditional 6-inch photomasks to larger 12-inch formats, targeting a pilot line by 2031 and full production by 2033, which will expand the print field and reduce manufacturing costs. Additionally, Intel Foundry and ASML confirmed that Intel has processed over one million wafers on its Intel 18A node using High NA EUV equipment. These coordinated advancements boosted investor confidence in sub-2-nanometer chip designs and next-generation AI infrastructure. Among the stocks, Intel jumped 9.5%, Amkor and FormFactor each rose 6.3%, Nova gained 3.7%, and Qualcomm advanced 3.3%.

U.S. semiconductor giant Qualcomm announced on the 8th a partnership with Amazon.com to supply AI semiconductors for large-scale data centers. Through this partnership, Qualcomm could see future revenue of up to $60 billion (approximately 9.2 trillion yen). The two companies will jointly develop semiconductors specialized for AI inference processing and will also collaborate on optical interconnect technology to speed up semiconductor processing. Additionally, Qualcomm will expand its use of AI services from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon's cloud division, in semiconductor design.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for October delivery closed at $93.03 per barrel, up $1.55, or 1.7%, while Brent crude closed at $97.92 per barrel, up 92 cents, or 0.9%, hitting a six-week high. This follows a Houthi attack on four cities in southern Saudi Arabia, injuring more than 70 people and causing fires at oil infrastructure, raising the risk of a wider Middle East conflict. Meanwhile, the U.S. struck an Iranian oil tanker linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in retaliation for attacks on U.S. warships. The UK is preparing to sanction Israeli settlements in the West Bank by banning imports of goods from the area, expected to take effect in 6-9 months. The EU and Canada are moving forward with a new relationship covering trade and security to counterbalance the U.S. and China. Chevron plans to more than double its drilling rigs in Venezuela under a five-year plan, as its joint venture will invest over $7 billion to boost production to 600,000 barrels per day by 2031. The U.S. Treasury Secretary said the expansion of the bond buyback program aims to cool the market, while pushing for a plan to reduce the budget deficit through Congress by year-end. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Iran's airline and supporting companies, including Mahan Air, totaling 36 entities. China issued guidelines for managing AI disputes and accelerated patent approvals, while Chinese banks increased their holdings of government bonds to 16.4% of total assets in July, up from 11.5% five years ago. SoftBank is preparing to raise $10-20 billion through high-yield bonds to invest in AI, and Qualcomm revealed that Amazon will order AI chips worth up to $60 billion.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares rallied about 6.7% to $509.635 on Tuesday, as investors bet on surging AI infrastructure demand after Amazon (AMZN) signaled it could buy up to $60 billion of AI data-center products from Qualcomm (QCOM) through a long-term collaboration. AMD's second-quarter results showed revenue soaring 50% to $11.54 billion, with data-center sales more than doubling to $6.7 billion, now representing roughly 58% of total revenue. Qualcomm, the semiconductor designer, is targeting $15 billion in annual data-center revenue by 2029, which would be about 56% of AMD's current $26.8 billion annualized data-center run rate. Amazon's potential commitment underscores the scale of the opportunity but also highlights that hyperscalers have the resources to fund alternatives to established merchant chips. AMD's market price now stands 82.57% above its $279.15 GF Value, indicating investors are paying a steep premium for AI-fueled growth.

Qualcomm and Amazon announced a multi-generational collaboration to build next-generation AI data center infrastructure, sending Qualcomm shares up more than 3% in afternoon trading. Under the deal, Qualcomm will supply customized silicon for AWS's AI infrastructure and optical connectivity solutions for Amazon's data center networks. Qualcomm is also issuing warrants to Amazon for up to 25 million shares at $161.26 per share, expiring in 2036, with 3.75 million shares vesting upon issuance. Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhiwala said revenue from the deal will begin in the December quarter and expressed high confidence in generating $5 billion from the data center, hinting at another similar partnership with an undisclosed hyperscaler.

Intel and most of the semiconductor sector rose on Tuesday, while the broader market dipped, with the Dow down 1%, the S&P 500 down 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.1%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 2.2%. Intel shares jumped 9% after Northland Securities upgraded the stock to Outperform and set a $120 price target, citing a reported plan to raise CPU prices by up to 10% and a partnership with Tesla on the Terafab semiconductor endeavor. Qualcomm rose 4% after announcing a partnership with Amazon to build next-generation AI data center infrastructure, issuing warrants for up to 25 million shares at $161.26 per share. AMD climbed 6%, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing gained 2.5%, and GlobalFoundries rose 2.3% after securing a $375 million award from the U.S. Department of Commerce's CHIPS Research and Development Office. Broadcom gained 3.7%, Marvell rose 2.8%, Arm Holdings gained 3.5%, and MaxLinear surged 7%. Among neoclouds, Nebius soared 10% after Palantir named it preferred AI infrastructure partner, CoreWeave surged 14%, and IREN climbed nearly 10%. Microsoft declined 1.4%, Amazon inched down 0.6%, and Oracle increased 3.5%.

Wall Street's major averages slipped on Tuesday as Middle East tensions weighed, with the Dow down 1.1%, the S&P 500 down 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.4%. Qualcomm shares jumped over 9% in premarket trading after announcing a multi-generational collaboration with Amazon to develop custom AI silicon for AWS data centers, including warrants for up to 25 million shares at $161.26. Brent crude surged 1.3% to $98.28 per barrel following Houthi attacks on Saudi energy facilities, with Goldman Sachs raising its December 2026 Brent forecast by $5 to $85 per barrel and HSBC hiking its 2026 outlook to $90 from $80. LME copper futures hit a record $14,635 per metric ton, extending a 17% year-to-date gain, as global mine output fell 1.1% in the first half of 2026. Boeing delivered 51 commercial jets in August, down from 57 a year earlier, but its year-to-date total of 418 is the highest since 2018.

Qualcomm has backed health tech company Ultrahuman in a $70 million funding round to build a next-generation smart ring powered by Qualcomm chips, marking a push into advanced wearables beyond its core smartphone business. The Qualcomm-powered ring is intended to run complex software, including on-device AI features and device control functions. Qualcomm, a US-based semiconductor company with a market value of about $181.5 billion, sees this as part of its broader strategy to diversify into AI devices and edge computing. Investors should watch for Qualcomm highlighting design wins and revenue contributions from smart wearables in its segment reporting as a sign of traction.

Vietnam's leaders are urging Qualcomm and Samsung to continuously expand their investments in AI, semiconductors, and R&D in the country, aiming to elevate its role from a manufacturing base to a regional innovation hub. Qualcomm plans to make Vietnam its third-largest AI research center globally, while Samsung has confirmed plans to increase investment, train personnel, and open opportunities for local companies to participate in the global supply chain, building on its cumulative investment of over $24 billion in Vietnam.

Qualcomm shares have risen 8.7% since its last earnings report, outperforming the S&P 500, but the company missed third-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings estimates while beating on revenue. Non-GAAP earnings were $2.21 per share, down 20% year over year and slightly below the consensus of $2.22, while revenues of $9.95 billion fell 4% but topped expectations by 2.4%. Handset weakness pressured results, with QCT handset revenues plunging 20% to $5.09 billion, but automotive revenues surged 61% to $1.59 billion, marking the 23rd straight quarter of double-digit growth, and IoT revenues rose 9% to $1.83 billion. Qualcomm raised its fiscal 2026 exit-rate outlook for annualized automotive sales to approximately $7 billion from $6 billion, and completed the $3.1 billion Modular acquisition. For the fourth quarter, the company forecasts revenues of $9.7-$10.5 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $2.05-$2.25 per share, with handset revenues expected around $5.2 billion and automotive revenues projected to rise about 60% year over year. Since the report, the consensus estimate has shifted down 12.97%, and Qualcomm holds a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Qualcomm expects non-handset revenue growth to accelerate from 24% in fiscal 2026 to more than 60% in fiscal 2027, driven by AI chip demand. The company recently agreed to a long-term deal with Meta Platforms for data center CPUs, which could validate its new technology and boost demand. Non-handset revenue made up 40% of Qualcomm's fiscal 2026 third-quarter revenue, and the company projects non-handset revenue will reach $40 billion by fiscal 2029. Qualcomm's contract with Apple ends in March 2027, making the AI pivot timely as handset sales decline. Qualcomm trades at a P/E ratio of 18, down about 7.1% year to date, while the iShares Semiconductor ETF has surged more than 68%.