Amazon and Qualcomm said on Tuesday that they will jointly develop specialized processors for artificial-intelligence data centers. Qualcomm disclosed that the partnership has a value of up to $60 billion and that Amazon will receive an option to invest about $4 billion in the chipmaker. Qualcomm shares rose nearly 9% at the opening of Wall Street trading.
The companies plan to design processors for the daily operation of already trained AI models, a category that is rapidly gaining importance as AI becomes more widely deployed. They also said they will research new technologies for faster data exchange.
Amazon Web Services, the world's largest cloud provider, is developing its own processors to reduce reliance on chipmakers such as Nvidia and AMD. Other technology companies, including Alphabet's Google and Meta, the parent of Facebook, are pursuing similar projects.
Qualcomm's structure, which links a commercial partnership with a potential equity stake, is not unique. In recent months, AMD offered its own shares to Meta and OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, as part of multi-billion-dollar supply contracts.
