Qualcomm Partners with Amazon AWS on Multi-Generation AI Chips, Shares Rise 6%
On September 8, 2026, Qualcomm announced a multi-generation custom chip partnership with Amazon's cloud unit AWS to develop AI inference chips for large-scale data centers and co-advance optical interconnect solutions up to 1.6T and beyond. Qualcomm granted Amazon's investment entity a warrant to buy up to 25 million shares at $161.26 each, tied to up to $6 billion in business procurement. Qualcomm shares rose 6% on the news.
On September 8, 2026, Qualcomm announced a multi-generation custom chip partnership with Amazon's cloud computing division, AWS. The two companies will jointly develop custom AI inference chips for large-scale AI data centers and co-advance optical interconnect solutions with speeds extending to 1.6T and higher specifications. Qualcomm stated that as AI workloads grow exponentially, data center demand for computing power, storage, network bandwidth, and energy-efficient infrastructure has risen sharply. The partnership will combine Amazon's scale advantages in AI infrastructure with Qualcomm's technical expertise in low-power processing, chip design, and system integration. Following the announcement, Qualcomm shares rose 6% on the day.
On the commercial arrangement front, a filing with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed that Qualcomm has granted a warrant to NV Investment Holdings LLC, an investment entity under Amazon, allowing Amazon to subscribe for up to 25 million shares of Qualcomm common stock at an exercise price of $161.26 per share. The warrant's exercise triggers are tied to the realization of the commercial partnership, order placement, and Amazon's procurement of Qualcomm server chips, corresponding to a maximum business procurement scale of $6 billion, with 7.5 million shares also linked to initial purchase commitments. Additionally, Qualcomm plans to deepen its use of AWS AI infrastructure, including applying Amazon Bedrock to electronic design automation workloads, with the goal of shortening chip design cycles.
Qualcomm has long been centered on mobile processor businesses. In June 2026, it launched the Dragonfly C1000 central processing unit for the data center market, designed specifically for agentic AI and focused on delivering computing performance under low power conditions. Qualcomm said at the time that Meta would adopt the product after its production launch in 2028, and set a target of $15 billion in data center sales for fiscal 2029. The partnership with AWS marks another move by Qualcomm in the AI data center market, covering multiple generations of product development cycles, with specific financial terms undisclosed.