Qualcomm Stock Surges 15% on $1 Billion Saudi AI Datacenter Deal
Qualcomm's bold entry into the AI chip market sent its shares soaring 15% to a 52-week high of $182.23. The semiconductor giant unveiled two new datacenter processors - the AI200 and AI250 - targeting memory-intensive AI applications, with planned launches in 2026 and 2027 respectively.
The rally followed news of a landmark 200MW capacity agreement with Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN initiative, valued at approximately $1 billion. This strategic partnership positions Qualcomm as a key hardware provider for the Kingdom's sovereign AI ambitions, building on a letter of intent signed earlier this year.
While Wolfe Research maintained its Peerperform rating, noting Qualcomm's LPDDR memory and PCIe connections lag behind competitors' HBM and NVLink solutions, the market responded enthusiastically to the company's AI pivot. The deal marks a significant challenge to Nvidia's dominance in datacenter AI acceleration.
