Shares in Qualcomm Inc (QCOM) have climbed as much as 19% to open the week, following the semiconductor developer’s announcement of new AI chips. The company announced Monday that it will release new artificial intelligence accelerator chips, marking new competition for Nvidia in the AI space it currently dominates. Qualcomm, which normally develops semiconductors for wireless connectivity and mobile devices, will now shift focus to chips that will help power data centers.
The new chips, called AI200 and AI250, are designed for improved memory capacity and running AI applications, or inference, and will be available in 2026 and 2027, respectively.
Qualcomm said that both the AI200 and the AI250 can come in a system that fills up a full, liquid-cooled server rack. “We first wanted to prove ourselves in other domains, and once we built our strength over there, it was pretty easy for us to go up a notch into the data center level,” Durga Malladi, Qualcomm’s general manager for data center and edge, said on a call with reporters last week.
Why Else Is QCOM Stock Up?
QCOM stock is also up, along with other top tech stocks, amid growing chances of a US-China trade deal being approved this week. The two countries have been at odds over tariffs throughout 2025, which has made the tech stock market very volatile. However, the nearing deal could help stocks behind companies with close ties to China surge in value, including QCOM. Furthermore, global investment in AI chips has soared as cloud providers, chipmakers and enterprises rush to build infrastructure capable of supporting complex, large language models, chatbots and other generative AI tools.
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At press time, QCOM stock is trading near the top of its 52-week range and above its 200-day simple moving average. Analysts have mixed views on Qualcomm (QCOM), with most seeing potential for stock growth. Rosenblatt is notably optimistic with a $225 price target, while Cantor Fitzgerald is more conservative at a $150 stock forecast. Qualcomm is expected to announce its financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal 2025 on Wednesday, November 5, 2025.