Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) became the top name in chip trading this week, rising 12% on Friday to a 40.3% rise over the week, and is now up about 75% over the past month, smashing all-time highs after all-time highs.
Meanwhile, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) posted its first intraday record since May 11 on Friday, according to data from Yahoo Finance. This followed a three-day rise, which followed a three-day decline that began late last week.
Qualcomm is using phones, glasses, cars and robots to chase physical AI commerce
To be perfectly clear, Qualcomm is not beating out Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA ) in the race for giant AI training chips. Nvidia still has the main platform for GPUs used in large AI systems and cloud workloads, however
Qualcomm is using the power of its phone chip to delve into AI-powered devices closer to the user.
This is where the “physical AI” story comes into play.
The company’s chips are attached to devices that people can carry, wear, drive or place inside devices such as smartphones, glasses, cars, robots and computers.
More companies now want AI to run directly on devices, an area often called edge AI. Qualcomm is already linked to Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Surface computers, as well as smart glasses from Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Meta (NASDAQ: META) platforms.
Its Arm-based chips also give device makers a lower power option compared to Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) processors.
OpenAI is also said to be working with Qualcomm on an AI chip for an upcoming device that can run AI agents.
Qualcomm It also has new data center chipsets coming. The company announced the AI200 and AI250 last year. These are dedicated AI accelerators, not regular phone chips.
It’s supposed to be more programmable than the GPUs Nvidia has used to dominate AI workloads so far. The chips are expected to arrive later this year in a full rack-scale system, similar in format to Nvidia’s Vera Rubin setup and AMD’s upcoming Helios system.
Trump’s quantitative financing plan puts Qualcomm inside another risky government-backed business
Qualcomm is also part of the quantum computing story, which is getting more attention after the Trump administration backed a major federal funding plan for the sector.
The US government plans to put $2 billion into nine quantum computing companies through funding derived from the CHIPS and Science Act, as Cryptopolitan previously reported. Qualcomm has secured $100 million from Quantum Funding Pool.
The law was passed by Congress and signed by former President Joe Biden in 2022, but the awards are now being handled under the Trump administration, using funds approved by Congress in a legally risky manner.
The company also has an artificial intelligence research laboratory that works on linking quantum computing and artificial intelligence. One recent paper entitled Hints in your neural network: A quantum field theory view of deep learningHe said the researchers “develop a quantum field theory formalism for deep learning” by using Gaussian states to represent input signals.
Precedence Research expects the quantum computing market to grow from $10.13 billion in 2022 to $125 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 36.9%.
McKinsey has called quantum computing “one of the next big trends” in technology and estimates that quantum technology could create value of about $1.3 trillion by 2035.
McKinsey also expects the number of quantum computers in operation to reach only about 5,000 by 2030, while the hardware and software needed to solve the toughest problems may not arrive until 2035 or later.
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