Qualcomm is reportedly considering re-entering the server market. The move is allegedly to reduce their dependence on smartphone chipsets. Interestingly, Amazon has the potential to be one of their clients.
The semiconductor company based in San Diego, United States had attempted to enter the server segment in 2017. At that time they named their server chipset Centric 2400 based on ARM, but the project only lasted a year before being discontinued.
According to Bloomberg, Qualcomm plans to re-enter the server market through Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired last year. Nuvia itself is a chip startup company founded by former Apple and Google chip engineers. However, it is not yet known whether Qualcomm will use the Arm base again for the chipset, or some other type of data-center architecture.
The move is believed to be Qualcomm’s attempt to reduce their dependence on smartphone chipsets. For information, sales of chipsets for mobile phones and computers have indeed decreased this year. As a result, Qualcomm is quite affected because half of their market is in smartphones, although in the past few years they have expanded into the automotive, industrial and Arm-based PC segments.
Although it has only re-entered the server market four years after four years of discontinuing it, Qualcomm already has a sizable client base. Amazon, one of the biggest server chipset buyers with its Amazon Web Service, has reportedly agreed to take a look at Qualcomm’s proposed bid.
