CNBC Television
Qualcomm CEO: Our addressable market for AI data centers is 'all of it'
11/6/2025, 12:32:43 PM
Economic Summary
- Qualcomm (QCOM) saw strength in its phone business as consumers trade up to premium devices even before major phone AI features launch, implying near-term revenue tailwinds for handset chipsets.
- The AI transition on phones is gradual ('a crescendo'), meaning incremental feature rollouts could steadily increase device utility and chipset demand rather than a single binary upgrade moment.
- Qualcomm plans to enter the data center GPU/accelerator market with a distinct architecture and expects to address both training and inference workloads; management will provide more details in the first half of next year, signaling a material strategic expansion beyond mobile.
- A fast cadence of chip improvements leads some customers to delay purchases waiting for the next generation, which changes economics for vendors and could slow near-term deployments.
- Standards and infrastructure lock-in (notably around NVIDIA/NVDA) create switching frictions; geopolitical restrictions that limit U.S. tech access could push other regions to adopt alternative stacks, with long-term economic implications for U.S. companies.
Bullish
- Consumers are trading up to premium phones, boosting Qualcomm's handset-related revenue.
- AI capabilities on phones are a crescendo, increasingly making phones more useful and supporting chipset demand.
- Qualcomm is developing data center chips with a different, potentially more efficient architecture to target inference and training.
Bearish
- Qualcomm took a tax-related charge that weighed on sentiment, causing shares to fall after hours despite beats.
- Strong incumbency and software lock-in to NVIDIA make it hard for new chips to dislodge entrenched players.
- Rapid cadence of new chip generations encourages buyers to wait for next-gen products, delaying current purchases.
- Geopolitical limits on U.S. tech access could push other regions to develop non-U.S. stacks, reducing long-term addressable markets.
Bullish tickers
QCOM
Bearish tickers
QCOMNVDAAMD
QCOM
Bullish
Benefit from consumers trading up to premium phones and a growing role for AI on devices; pursuing a new data center architecture.
Bearish
Took a tax-related charge and shares fell after hours despite beats; faces a difficult incumbent-dominated data center market.
NVDA
Bullish
Current de facto standard for AI infrastructure with strong software ecosystem and customer lock-in advantages.
Bearish
High expectations and potential competitive efficiency gains from new architectures could pressure future returns if competitors close the gap.
AMD
Bullish
Established data center GPU competitor with existing presence in AI workloads.
Bearish
Competes in a market where NVIDIA dominance and potential new efficient entrants raise competitive pressure.
People mentioned
Cristiano AmonJohnAndrewJensen Wang