In an exclusive interview, Qualcomm's Executive Vice President, CFO, and COO Akash Palkhiwala shared insights into the company's strategic evolution. The world's largest smartphone chip maker is poised to become the leading automotive chip supplier globally, while also positioning itself as a formidable player in the AI data center market. This transformation represents Qualcomm's most significant strategic shift in its forty-year history, evolving into a platform company spanning the computing continuum.

During Qualcomm's Global 6G Technology Day held in San Diego, Palkhiwala discussed the company's technology DNA, the exceptional growth of its automotive business, expanding partnerships with Chinese companies, and his vision for the AI era. Palkhiwala joined Qualcomm in 2001 and has held leadership roles across treasury, financial planning and analysis, and corporate development. Currently serving as both CFO and COO, he has been one of the principal architects of Qualcomm's diversification strategy over the past five years.

Automotive Business Poised to Become Global Leader

When Cristiano Amon assumed the role of Qualcomm CEO in 2021, he introduced a diversification strategy to move beyond the company's "smartphone-only" identity. The plan aimed to maintain its core mobile business while extending its low-power computing and connectivity advantages into automotive, IoT, PC, XR, and other emerging sectors, targeting approximately $22 billion in non-handset revenue by fiscal 2029. Five years later, this strategy has shown promising results, with Qualcomm's automotive business accumulating over $65 billion in total design-win pipeline, and AI data centers emerging as its newest diversification frontier. The company has since doubled its original diversification target, now planning to reach $40 billion in non-handset revenue by fiscal 2029, including over $15 billion from data centers, $10 billion from automotive, and more than $14 billion from IoT.

Reflecting on the past five years, Palkhiwala noted that Qualcomm's business has undergone tremendous transformation, expanding from mobile communications leadership into automotive, IoT, personal AI devices, robotics, and data centers. When asked which diversification area exceeded expectations most, he pointed unhesitatingly to automotive. "The auto industry has transformed at remarkable speed, with chip content per vehicle and new features increasing dramatically," he said. "Starting next year, Qualcomm is expected to become the largest chip supplier to the automotive industry." He revealed that Qualcomm has twice raised its financial forecasts—18 months ago, recognizing the $10 billion annualized automotive revenue target could be achieved ahead of schedule, and again two months ago with another upward revision. He expressed strong optimism about automotive becoming a long-term, sustainable leadership business for Qualcomm.

Regarding the share of Chinese automakers in Qualcomm's automotive design-win pipeline, Palkhiwala noted that the company's investor day disclosures categorize orders by Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Approximately 40% of the pipeline originates from Asia, with China representing a substantial portion, along with Japan, Korea, and India.

Low Power and High Efficiency as Core Competitive Advantage

This year, Qualcomm made significant strides in AI data centers. The company unveiled its Qualcomm Dragonfly data center product roadmap at its investor day, covering three product categories with production slated for 2028. Despite the recent introduction, Qualcomm has already secured a multi-generational agreement with Meta, whose next-generation server clusters will feature Qualcomm Dragonfly C1000 data center CPUs—the most significant endorsement Qualcomm has received in this space to date. Additionally, Qualcomm partnered with Saudi AI giant Humain on a 200-megawatt rack-level solution.

Discussing these deals, Palkhiwala emphasized that Qualcomm's greatest technical advantage in data center processors—and what customers value most—is performance per watt. This cost-efficiency metric ultimately impacts customers' total cost of ownership (TCO), specifically the cost of delivering each token to consumers and enterprises. He revealed that Meta, Humain, and several other hyperscale cloud customers all focused primarily on whether Qualcomm could deliver tokens at lower power consumption and cost. "I believe we are just getting started in data centers, with tremendous room for growth ahead," he said.

Using Meta as an example, Palkhiwala explained Qualcomm's collaboration model: building a highly customized, optimized CPU solution for Meta's data centers. This reflects Qualcomm's typical entry approach—finding a "marquee customer" willing to deeply engage in product definition, guiding design decisions that serve both that customer's needs and industry-wide requirements, then scaling broadly to market. He acknowledged that as the business diversifies across automotive, PC, robotics, and data centers, Qualcomm increasingly enters the competitive core of various industries—a natural aspect of technology development and market competition. Yet Qualcomm's core advantage remains low-power, high-efficiency computing.

Addressing Qualcomm's competitive edge in AI and the largest technological breakthrough direction over the next five years, Palkhiwala stated that "high performance and low power" is Qualcomm's fundamental DNA. Power constraints exist everywhere—in 6G, automotive, wearables, and smartphones. Batteries won't grow larger, but devices are tasked with increasingly complex workloads. The only solution is delivering chips with higher performance and lower power consumption. As AI shifts from on-demand usage to continuous background operation, chip design must adapt by integrating compute logic and memory more tightly. Qualcomm introduced a new architecture called HBC (High Bandwidth Computing), now being applied across data centers, smartphones, wearables, automotive, IoT devices, and robotics. "This is a foundational technology innovation. HBC represents a new computing architecture direction, enabling us to extend this capability across all terminals and computing platforms we engage with. We are very excited about this—it will be one of the defining technologies for future computing."

Expanding Chinese Partnerships Across New Sectors

Discussing Qualcomm's ecosystem in China, Palkhiwala emphasized that China is a critical market for the company. Partnerships have expanded from initial smartphone collaborations with Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, and Honor to automotive, IoT, wearables, and robotics. "As Qualcomm evolves and transforms, our relationship with China continues to expand and deepen," he said, noting he has visited China twice this year alone. Chinese partners have always been core to the smartphone and wireless communications ecosystem. Qualcomm's collaboration with China began in the 3G era and strengthened through 4G and 5G, with China being among the first markets to commercialize 5G.

"Wireless technology is now being integrated into various terminals—whether automotive, industrial, or robotics. These devices won't just be 5G terminals; they will evolve into 6G terminals," he said. He specifically highlighted that one core foundation of 6G design is accounting for devices with dominant uplink traffic, such as smart glasses—unlike phones primarily downloading from networks, glasses continuously capture information and transmit it to the cloud. "We will explore 6G standards together with our Chinese ecosystem partners. Looking ahead, we will continue collaborating to advance 6G evolution and commercial deployment."

He noted that this strong partnership has created value not only for Qualcomm but also for China's industrial ecosystem. Increasingly, Chinese terminal manufacturers and ecosystem participants are looking beyond domestic markets to expand globally—where collaboration with Qualcomm provides significant value. Palkhiwala specifically cited Xiaomi as an example of the evolving relationship: starting with smartphones, extending to IoT devices and wearables, and now Qualcomm technology and platforms are applied in Xiaomi's automotive products. "We bring technological innovation, they bring business expansion and revenue, and then we grow together—not just in China but globally, step by step, achieving win-win outcomes," he said.

3G Left Deepest Impression; AI Opportunity Unprecedented

As a 25-year Qualcomm veteran, Palkhiwala has witnessed the company's technology transitions from 3G through 4G and 5G, and now toward 6G, AI, and data centers. Asked which technology shift left the deepest personal impression, he called the question "very interesting." "We are currently experiencing the transition to the AI era, which is clearly the most significant," he said. But 3G stands out as his first major industry transformation as a Qualcomm employee. "When I joined in 2001, 3G was just emerging. It was the first time people truly understood that wireless networks could enable data transmission. 3G was crucial, and it was when Qualcomm became a major force in mobile communications, later bringing that technology to China, Korea, and other regions."

On how AI transforms consumer devices and enterprise markets, Palkhiwala explained that on-device AI's core value lies in giving devices perception of the individual—if a device can see what the user sees, hear what the user hears, understand intent, and track movement, it can leverage that information to assist decision-making. "This is the superpower AI gives devices—making them truly personal sensors," he said. He cited an example: glasses could reshape the hearing aid industry. Many people with hearing difficulties avoid wearing hearing aids, but glasses serve as an ideal platform—with microphones continuously capturing ambient sound, AI filtering noise, preserving only what the user needs to hear, and amplifying it. "It's a simple application, but transformative for millions worldwide."

Beyond personal AI devices, Palkhiwala discussed "physical AI"—AI applied in assisted driving, robotics, and industrial scenarios. Qualcomm is building "brains" for robots, enabling them to enter a construction site, look around, absorb information, construct a three-dimensional image of the scene, and subsequently track construction progress over time. "This is a capability that never existed before," he noted. He also mentioned AI integration in security cameras, where AI-enabled cameras can autonomously identify intruders and anomalies. "Cameras have always existed, but without AI they couldn't make autonomous decisions. Once AI is added, everything changes." He emphasized that wherever high-performance computing under low power constraints is required—especially in the AI era—Qualcomm can play a significant role and will continue delivering technological innovation to the ecosystem.