Qualcomm teases agentic CPUs and smartphones • The Register

Qualcomm has quietly entered the marketplace for customized hyperscale silicon, and datacenter CPUs

Talking on the corporate’s Q2 earnings name, CEO Cristiano Amon stated the corporate will present customized product to “a number one hyperscaler,” expects shipments “within the December quarter” and is “desirous about a multi-generation engagement.”

Pressed on the small print, Amon stated Qualcomm is already engaged on a knowledge heart CPU and high-performance AI inference accelerators, and gained the power to create customized ASICs by acquiring Alphawave.

He additionally revealed that Qualcomm has constructed what he described as “a devoted CPU for agentic experiences within the knowledge heart.”

In Amon’s telling, AI kicked off with GPUs for coaching, devoted inferencing {hardware} was the subsequent necessity, however the market is now coming into a brand new part during which you will need to “generate demand for tokens” to energy agentic AI.

“I believe when you concentrate on brokers, CPU turns into essential,” he stated, so Qualcomm has constructed one.

The corporate will stage an investor day in June at which it would reveal extra about its plans.

The CEO additionally teased the arrival of what he calls “agentic smartphones,” and cited current merchandise from Chinese language handset-makers as examples. He talked about a ZTE telephone that features the Doubao private assistant developed by ByteDance, and Xiaomi’s miclaw – an AI-powered assistant that’s built-in with the OS kernel and divines smartphone customers’ intent after which drives third-party instruments to make it occur.

Requested what agentic smartphones will imply, Amon stated “We see attention-grabbing associations now beginning to kind between smartphones and AI corporations. We’re beginning to see some very attention-grabbing dynamics there, which is altering the character of designs.”

These dynamics imply smartphone designs are “shifting in direction of merchandise [that] have way more succesful CPU.” They might additionally want extra reminiscence, which is at the moment briefly provide. Amon stated “we see new reminiscence gamers coming and constructing capability. So we will have to watch the scenario and see what occurs in 2027.”

The CEO is already keenly conscious of the reminiscence scarcity, as a result of it’s hurting Qualcomm as smartphone producers – particularly Chinese language corporations – determine to construct fewer items.

Amon and CFO Akash Palkhiwala each predicted demand will backside out in Q3, then rebound.

The CEO additionally revealed that Qualcomm expects to win 70 p.c of Samsung’s SoC enterprise this 12 months and subsequent, up from its regular 50 p.c. Samsung is making an attempt to enhance its Exynos SoCs, and make extra of them. Clearly the Korean large isn’t but prepared to face by itself two toes.

The corporate gained $10.6 billion of income for the quarter, down three p.c year-over-year. Internet revenue shot up by 162 p.c, to $7.37 billion.

Amon stated Qualcomm will spotlight its plans to diversify at its June investor occasion, and emphasised how the corporate’s automotive enterprise means it’s already heading down the highway to extra sources of income and development.

“In Q2, we exceeded $5 billion in annualized revenues for the primary time, and we count on to exit fiscal ’26 at a run charge above $6 billion,” he stated, earlier than declaring that over a million automobiles now provide superior driver help and automatic driving powered by Qualcomm processors.

He additionally provided another tease: “By the top of the fiscal 12 months, we are going to start business shipments of our fifth-generation Snapdragon Digital Chassis platform.”

That {hardware} will include 3 times increased CPU throughput, a threefold enhance in GPU functionality, and 12 occasions increased NPU efficiency. And since it’s 2026, the silicon will even help what Amon described as “in-vehicle brokers and processing for Degree 3 and Degree 4 autonomous driving.”

The corporate’s PC chips have been deemed worthy of just some fleeting mentions. ®