Qualcomm Announces Server CPU Plans, Nvidia Partnership

Taipei, Taiwan - Qualcomm's chief executive said on Monday that the company will develop server CPUs and has formed a partnership with Nvidia to integrate their technologies for AI computing systems.

Cristiano Amon confirmed the chipmaker's data center ambitions during his keynote address at the Computex technology conference in Taiwan, following indications in a company legal filing last year.

"We are expanding into the data center," Amon told attendees. "Soon you'll hear from us about the products."

The arrangement will utilize Nvidia's newly revealed NVLink Fusion technology, which allows Qualcomm's custom CPUs to be integrated with Nvidia's graphics processors. 

Nvidia describes the technology as enabling rack-scale AI infrastructure for customers seeking chip supplier diversification.

Amon cited AI-specific computing requirements as motivation for the company's server market entry, noting their focus on "clusters of inference about high performance and very low power."

This marks Qualcomm's second attempt to establish a foothold in data centers. 

The company previously entered but withdrew from the server processor market in 2018, resulting in workforce reductions.

The move positions Qualcomm as a challenger to Intel and AMD in the server processor segment, alongside newer competitors including Ampere Computing and Nvidia, which have increased shipments of their own Grace CPU line.

According to legal documents filed last year, Qualcomm plans to continue developing server processor technology acquired from chip design startup Nuvia, which it purchased in 2021. 

The Snapdragon X Series chips for personal computers were the first Qualcomm products to incorporate technology from this acquisition.

Qualcomm hired former Intel executive Sailesh Kottapalli in January to prepare for its data center push. Kottapalli spent 28 years at Intel, most recently as a senior fellow and chief architect for the company's Xeon server processors.

A December job posting revealed that Qualcomm's data center team is working on "high-performance, energy-efficient server solution" technology.