As the United States continues to tighten its chip restrictions on China, American chip company Qualcomm has sent a clear signal: even under the regulatory constraints in Washington, it does not plan to give up the Chinese market.
According to a report by Nikkei Asia on June 25, at the 2026 Investors Day event held in New York on local time on June 24, Qualcomm unveiled its chip product roadmap for the data center market. Additionally, Qualcomm's President and CEO Amnon Shitovitzky revealed that the company is developing AI chips for data centers that meet US export control requirements for Chinese customers.
During a break in the meeting, Anmon told Japanese media that Qualcomm plans to introduce all four of its data center products into China, including AI accelerators, data center CPUs, custom chips, and connection chips. The products targeted at the Chinese market will be designed specifically according to US export control requirements.
"We have a vast business operation in China. I believe that with the advancement of our company's diversified business, our cooperation relations with Chinese companies and customers will also expand accordingly." Amnon said, emphasizing that relationships with Chinese smartphone manufacturers and automotive enterprises would be "our advantage in the data center field."
However, he also pointed out that the United States has clear regulations regarding the export of chips to China. Therefore, Qualcomm will launch versions that comply with these regulations. “We are actively communicating, and the feedback we have received is positive.”
On June 24 local time, Qualcomm's President and CEO Ram Chand Anand spoke at the 2026 Investors' Day event. Video screenshot
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on May 31 local time that it has taken action to close a so-called “regulatory loophole” that has existed for one year. This “loophole” could have allowed several companies to export advanced chips to Chinese entities located outside China.
China's Ministry of Commerce spokesman He Yong replied on June 4 that in recent years, the US has continuously abused export controls under the pretext of national security, seriously harming the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, undermining the international economic and trade order, and jeopardizing the stability of the global semiconductor industry chain and supply chain. China has always opposed this behavior. China urges the US to correct its wrongful practices as soon as possible, stop discriminatory measures against China, and maintain the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain.
Anmon pointed out that China has become one of the most active regions in global AI innovation. From smartphones and glasses to cars, new AI applications have emerged on various platforms in China.
"In fact, when discussing the Chinese market now, I'm even unsure who the true mobile terminal customers are," he said. "Apart from traditional OEM manufacturers, nearly every company developing foundational large models and building AI intelligent systems will be a customer of Qualcomm."
Since the beginning of this year, due to the soaring prices of memory chips, the global smartphone shipments could experience the largest annual decline ever. Qualcomm's orders from smartphone manufacturers are highly uncertain. The company is working hard to enter the rapidly growing market for data center chips, collaborating with customers to develop CPU products, AI inference accelerators, and Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs).
According to Nikkei Asia, currently most of Qualcomm's revenue comes from mobile chips. However, by the 2029 fiscal year, the company expects that revenue from smartphone chips will only account for one-third of its total revenue, while revenue from data center products will be on par with that from smartphone chips.
However, American bank analyst Vivek Arya pointed out that Qualcomm's current revenue from data center services is almost negligible. Whether it can successfully transfer the CPU and NPU capabilities it has accumulated in the consumer electronics field to complex data center scenarios remains to be verified.
"This is an AI market that is growing rapidly but also extremely competitive. There are already a large number of powerful players in it," he said.
