Qualcomm and AWS Announce Deal Allowing Amazon to Buy Up to $60 Billion in AI Chips

Overview

• The companies revealed the multi‑year partnership on September 8, with AWS granted the option to acquire as much as $60 billion of Qualcomm’s AI inference processors and related systems over time.
• Amazon also received warrants to buy about $4 billion of Qualcomm stock at a $161.26 strike that become exercisable only as AWS places commercial orders and procurement milestones are met.
• The pact covers custom inference chips and high‑bandwidth optical interconnects drawn from Qualcomm’s AlphaWave assets, including optical links capable of up to 1.6 terabits per second and use of AWS cloud tools for chip design.
• Markets reacted positively, with Qualcomm shares jumping after the announcement and several analysts raising price targets, but observers warn the financial upside is conditional on Qualcomm shipping competitive, volume‑grade products against entrenched rivals like Nvidia.
• Qualcomm views the deal as validation of its push to grow data‑center revenue to roughly $15 billion by 2029 and as a way to offset lost handset modem business, but converting the headline number into steady revenue will depend on binding orders, product performance, and hyperscaler procurement decisions.