Qualcomm soars 12% in a single day, hitting a historical high

On Friday, Qualcomm's stock price soared 12% in a single day, setting a new historical high, with a cumulative increase of 75% over the past month. The catalysts came from two directions: Qualcomm announced the previous day a chip supply agreement with automotive group Stellantis, and there were reports that Qualcomm is working with OpenAI to develop AI chips for terminal devices operated by AI agents.

Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth maintains a buy rating on Qualcomm, stating that investors are "awakening" to the realization that Qualcomm will return to its former glory and lead the revolution in connected devices. He is optimistic about Qualcomm's upcoming devices with OpenAI, calling it "a mobile phone based on an AI-based operating system that can perform all tasks."

Although Qualcomm lags behind NVIDIA in the cloud AI computing race, the company is leveraging its long-term dominance in the smartphone sector to extend its reach to connected devices such as glasses, automobiles, and robots, building a "Edge AI" core ecosystem. Qualcomm chips are now embedded in Microsoft Surface series PCs, as well as Google and Meta's smart glasses products. Its processors based on the Arm architecture are known for their energy efficiency, meeting the low-power computing needs of edge devices and competing differently with traditional CPUs from Intel and AMD.

In the automotive business, Stellantis announced that it will adopt Qualcomm Snapdragon processors to provide a unified computing platform for its vehicle models covering the cockpit, vehicle connectivity, and advanced driver assistance systems, with brands including Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Jeep, and Maserati. Qualcomm has previously signed similar cooperations with Bosch, Volkswagen, Hyundai, and BMW. The latest financial report shows a 38% year-on-year increase in automotive business revenue to $1.3 billion, with more than 1 million vehicles operating autonomous driving systems on Qualcomm processors.

The data center business is also a significant driver of this stock price jump. Qualcomm launched AI200 and AI250 custom AI acceleration chips last year, planning to deliver them in the form of a complete rack system, similar to NVIDIA's Vera Rubin system. CEO Cristiano Amon stated in the April financial report conference call that the company will begin shipping data center chips to "a large hyperscale cloud service provider" this year.

The next key point is: Amon is expected to deliver a keynote speech at the Taipei Computex on June 2, where more progress may be disclosed; Qualcomm's Investor Day is also scheduled for June 24.