Alphabet purchases a $548 million share in Qualcomm
Alphabet purchased a nearly $548 million share in its partner, Qualcomm, during the third quarter. The chipmaker’s ambitions to grow into data centers have benefited from this move. Which is crucial given that the smartphone sector is experiencing one of its worst downturns.
Pre-market trading saw a 3% increase in Qualcomm shares. Following poor September quarter results and a widespread sell-off sparked by the Democratic Party’s success in the U.S. midterm elections. The stock had dropped more than 9% on Thursday.
Almost all popular smartphones using Google’s Android operating system have long been powered by Qualcomm CPUs.
Google’s involvement coincides with Qualcomm’s aspirations to grow its fledgling data center business and its bid to become a major supplier to the AI infrastructure boom.
At a time when businesses are concentrating on creating chips internally and searching for alternatives to pricey Nvidia chips, Qualcomm has spent the past year recruiting cloud service providers with custom AI processors.
By 2029, the chipmaker anticipates earning $15 billion from data center processors. Qualcomm and Amazon reached an agreement in September that permits the tech giant to purchase up to $60 billion worth of data center AI processors. And related goods while also offering warrants for Amazon to purchase Qualcomm’s shares.
Big major firms like Microsoft and Meta have also backed Qualcomm’s wager by placing orders for their data center chips.
Additionally, Google said on Friday that it has slightly increased its ownership of Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, from 551.2 million shares to roughly 555 million shares.
