- Qualcomm presently sells AI accelerator processors however has the CPU market in its sights
- Sailesh Kottapalli’s experience is in x86 structure, not Arm
- However that did not cease Qualcomm from bringing him onboard to steer its knowledge heart group
Qualcomm, famend for its Snapdragon processors powering enterprise smartphones and laptops around the globe, has made a probably key rent because it appears to be like to problem the likes of AMD and Intel within the processor market.
The corporate’s newest coup is hiring Sailesh Kottapalli, a former chief architect for Xeon processors and a 28-year Intel veteran.
Kottapalli joined Qualcomm as senior vp in early January 2025, bringing in depth experience in designing high-performance x86 server chips.
Kottapalli’s transfer to Arm
Kottapalli wrote on LinkedIn that “the chance to innovate and develop whereas serving to to scale new frontiers was immensely compelling to me—a once-in-a-career alternative that I couldn’t go on.”
What makes the transfer vital, given Qualcomm’s reliance on Arm-based designs, is Kottapalli’s experience in x86 structure. His management may assist bridge the hole between Qualcomm’s present know-how and the demanding necessities of knowledge heart CPUs.
A renewed push for the info heart
Qualcomm had retreated from server CPU growth again in 2018, however the firm has now revealed plans to develop high-performance, energy-efficient server options tailor-made for knowledge heart functions.
This journey started with its Snapdragon X collection for PCs, that includes customized Arm-based cores derived from its $1.4 billion acquisition of the startup Nuvia again in 2021, that constructed to a authorized crescendo in a Delaware court docket in December 2024 when Arm alleged that Qualcomm’s acquisition breached its licencing phrases. Although a federal jury sided with Qualcomm, Arm is in search of a retrial.
For now, although, Qualcomm has been increasing its presence within the knowledge heart sector, with AI accelerator chips below the Qualcomm Cloud AI model supported by trade leaders like AWS, HPE, and Lenovo.