Qualcomm is building data center chips specifically for China, a move designed to stay within US government export restrictions while protecting a market worth nearly half its annual revenue.
The company unveiled its Dragonfly platform during an investor day in New York on June 24, with CEO Cristiano Amon positioning the initiative as both regulatory compliance and aggressive market expansion. The platform will include AI accelerators, data center CPUs, custom silicon, and connectivity products, all engineered to stay beneath the performance thresholds set by US export rules.
The money math behind the pivot
46% of Qualcomm’s revenue in 2025 came from Chinese customers, mostly through smartphone chip sales. The company forecasts $300 million in data center revenue for the current fiscal year, scaling to $5 billion by fiscal 2027. Qualcomm estimates the broader data center market will surpass $1 trillion by 2029.
The Dragonfly architecture
