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Qualcomm’s chief executive officer Cristiano Amon described data center as one of Qualcomm’s top strategic priorities, saying the company is building the business around long-term customer relationships, a broad product portfolio, and an open software ecosystem
In sum – what to know
AWS collaboration advances – Qualcomm said custom AI accelerators began shipping in October, while optical connectivity solutions for AWS are expected to ramp later in November. It also secured a second optical connectivity customer.
Revenue targets reaffirmed – Qualcomm expects more than $650 million in data center revenue in the December quarter and reiterated its $5 billion fiscal 2027 and $15 billion fiscal 2029 targets.
Portfolio expands – The company highlighted progress with its High Bandwidth Compute technology, AI250 silicon, Dragonfly C1000 CPU for Meta, optical connectivity and Modular software.
Qualcomm expects its data center business to generate more than $650 million in revenue in the December quarter, as it moves from customer engagements into shipments of custom silicon and connectivity products.
During its Q4 fiscal year 2026 earnings call, executives reaffirmed the company’s $5 billion data center revenue target for fiscal 2027 and its $15 billion target for fiscal 2029.
Qualcomm’s chief executive officer Cristiano Amon described data center as one of Qualcomm’s top strategic priorities, saying the company is building the business around long-term customer relationships, a broad product portfolio, and an open software ecosystem.
The collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a central part of that strategy. Amon said the agreement spans multiple product generations, covering custom silicon for AI inference as well as optical connectivity. Qualcomm’s custom accelerators began shipping in October, while its connectivity solutions for AWS are expected to ramp later in November. The company also secured a second customer for optical connectivity.
CFO and COO Akash Palkhiwala said Qualcomm expects data center revenue to scale throughout fiscal 2027, exiting the year at an approximately $7 billion annualized run rate. He said the company expects to be constrained by supply rather than demand for revenue upside beyond its $5 billion fiscal 2027 target.
The AWS agreement carries a potential revenue opportunity of up to $60 billion over the next 10 years, according to Palkhiwala. Qualcomm is also expanding its customer pipeline across other global hyperscalers.
Custom silicon leads the initial ramp
During the Q&A with analyst, Palkhiwala explained that most of the $5 billion fiscal 2027 data center revenue target is expected to come from custom silicon for the main AI accelerator at two hyperscaler customers. Connectivity revenue is expected to be the next-largest contributor to the fiscal 2027 total.
The product mix is expected to broaden by fiscal 2029. Qualcomm said its $15 billion target includes the existing custom silicon business, expanded connectivity revenue, and contributions from its CPU and AI accelerator products.
High Bandwidth Compute and AI250
Qualcomm also reported progress with its High Bandwidth Compute (HBC) technology, which it is developing for AI inference accelerators. Palkhiwala said the company successfully validated the technology in lab trials during the quarter, describing this as a milestone in addressing the memory-bandwidth challenge in data centers.
Amon said the AI250 silicon associated with Qualcomm High Bandwidth Compute was exceeding the company’s expectations for power efficiency and bandwidth, while early yields were on track. He added that the technology was generating interest from AI customers and memory partners, with two major prospects added during the quarter.
Optical connectivity and software
Optical connectivity is another component of Qualcomm’s data center strategy. The company is developing optical DSPs and investing in bringing optics directly alongside its XPUs and custom silicon. Amon pointed to demonstrations with Lumentum and Corning at ECOC 2026, including progress in optical and co-packaged optics.
Qualcomm’s optical roadmap covers 400G, 800G and 1.6T products. Amon said the company expects to introduce more optical products over time, while noting that it does not separately disclose connectivity revenue. He said that revenue is included in the company’s data center targets.
On the software side, Qualcomm said its full-stack integration with Modular is progressing. Amon said Modular’s open, multi-vendor software stack is running on Nvidia and AMD GPUs, Amazon Trainium and Google TPU, while optimization for Qualcomm accelerators is underway.
