Qualcomm Inc (NASDAQ:QCOM, ETR:QCI) shares climbed nearly 16% on Monday after the semiconductor maker announced that it will release new artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator chips, placing the company into direct competition with Nvidia and AMD.
Qualcomm said both the AI200 chip, which will go on sale in 2026, and the AI250, planned for 2027, can come in a system that fills up a full, liquid-cooled server rack.
A third chip and server are scheduled for 2028.
Nvidia and AMD provide their graphics processing units (GPUs) in full-rack systems that allow as many as 72 chips to act as one computer.
Nvidia's GPUs, which were used to train OpenAI’s ChatGPT, have a market share of more than 90%.
Qualcomm noted its chips are focusing on inference, or running AI models, instead of training.
The company added that its AI cards support 768 gigabytes of memory, which is higher than offerings from Nvidia and AMD.
Qualcomm’s AI chips are anticipated to have advantages over other accelerators in terms of power consumption, cost of ownership, and a new approach to the way memory is handled, CNBC reported.