Qualcomm just landed the kind of deal that makes Wall Street sit up and pay attention. The chipmaker’s shares jumped roughly 7-10% after Amazon announced a sweeping, multi-generational partnership to develop custom AI inference chips for AWS data centers.
The stock was trading near $180-$185 per share on the news.
What the deal actually involves
The partnership, announced on September 8, covers multiple generations of custom silicon specifically designed for AI inference workloads inside Amazon’s cloud infrastructure. Beyond the silicon itself, the collaboration includes advanced optical connectivity solutions capable of hitting speeds up to 1.6 terabits per second and beyond. Qualcomm is leveraging its own SerDes and optical DSP technologies to make that happen.
The deal also deepens Qualcomm’s existing relationship with Amazon on the software side. Qualcomm is increasing its reliance on AWS AI tools like Amazon Bedrock for its electronic design automation tasks.
