Qualcomm, the company whose chips sit inside most Android phones, told investors it expects to earn $15 billion a year from AI data centres by 2029. That matters because it is a plan to rebuild the business on a different foundation. Phone sales are falling, and Qualcomm is betting that selling silicon to the companies that run large AI systems can take up the slack.
The context explains the urgency. On its fourth-quarter 2026 earnings call, Qualcomm pointed to global smartphone sales dropping about 20% against 2025, a market it has leaned on for decades. Its total revenue for 2026 was $10.4 billion, so a $15 billion data-centre line would not just add to the business, it would reshape it. Qualcomm said it expects data centres to make up around 30% of the company in time.
The climb is steep and front-loaded with hope. Qualcomm forecasts roughly $650 million in data-centre revenue in the first quarter of 2027, then $5 billion by the end of that year, and $15 billion by 2029. Getting from a few hundred million a quarter to five billion in twelve months assumes orders that are promised rather than banked. The plan rests on multi-generation agreements announced earlier in 2026 with Amazon, for chips in AWS data centres, and with Meta.
That is also the weak point. A forecast anchored to two very large customers rises or falls with their spending, and both Amazon and Meta build their own silicon as well, so Qualcomm is a supplier that could be designed out. The target is modest next to the field: Qualcomm expects data centres to reach about 30% of revenue, while AMD has said it expects over 80% of its business to come from AI and data centres. Nvidia, the firm whose accelerators we discuss across our model and infrastructure coverage, still dominates the market Qualcomm is trying to enter, and AMD is the established second source.
The honest caveat is that these are management projections given on an earnings call, not booked revenue, and the 2029 figure is three years out in a market that has repeatedly surprised forecasters in both directions. Qualcomm has the engineering to make credible parts; whether it can win enough share from entrenched rivals, fast enough, is the open question. For now the forecast is a statement of intent, and the first real test is whether that $5 billion for 2027 holds up as the year unfolds.