Qualcomm has confirmed that Microsoft will deploy its new High Bandwidth Compute (HBC) AI chips for artificial intelligence workloads, while Meta will use Qualcomm's Dragonfly C1000 CPUs in its AI data centers. The announcement represents a major milestone in Qualcomm's strategy to diversify beyond smartphone processors and enter one of the fastest-growing segments of the semiconductor industry.
The company also revealed that it is developing custom AI chips for two additional hyperscale cloud providers, although their identities have not yet been disclosed. Qualcomm expects to begin shipping its new data center processors before the end of the year, targeting AI inference, cloud computing, and enterprise AI applications.
According to Qualcomm, demand for AI infrastructure is creating a significant long-term business opportunity. The company forecasts US$15 billion in annual data center chip revenue by 2029 and expects total non-smartphone semiconductor revenue to reach US$40 billion by that time, reflecting the rapid growth of artificial intelligence across industries.
Technology analysts say Qualcomm's expansion intensifies competition with established AI chip providers such as NVIDIA, AMD, and custom cloud chips developed by companies like Amazon and Google. As global investment in AI infrastructure continues to surge, Qualcomm's entry into the market could reshape the competitive landscape and accelerate innovation in enterprise artificial intelligence.
