Qualcomm said on Wednesday that it is acquiring AI startup Modular, in a deal valued at just under $4 billion.
The acquisition marks a major step in Qualcomm’s effort to strengthen its position in the AI infrastructure market.
Under the deal, Qualcomm will gain access to Modular’s AI-native software platform, which enables AI models to run efficiently across a range of hardware architectures without requiring developers to rewrite code for different accelerators.
The chipmaker said the deal will strengthen its generative and agentic AI offerings across both edge and cloud environments, while bolstering its growing data center business.
According to Qualcomm, Modular’s technology will help it deliver a more optimized AI compute layer across devices, edge deployments and data centers, improving performance-per-watt while expanding hardware flexibility for customers.
Qualcomm said it expects the acquisition to strengthen relationships with developers, model creators, hyperscalers and enterprise customers.
“As agentic AI scales across data centers and edge environments, the industry is moving toward disaggregated, multi-vendor architectures that demand a more open and modern software foundation,” said Cristiano Amon, president and CEO of Qualcomm. “With Modular, we’re accelerating that shift, combining our scale and energy-efficient data center technologies with an open ecosystem approach to help drive the next chapter of AI.”
Chris Lattner, Modular’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement the combination will enable the company to scale its goal of a more open AI software ecosystem.
“Joining Qualcomm gives us the scale and platform reach to accelerate that mission,” Lattner said in a statement. “Together, we can make AI development more accessible and performant for developers, strengthen portability across hardware, and help grow an open ecosystem that broadens participation and speeds innovation.”
Qualcomm has been steadily increasing its focus on AI infrastructure and data center computing as demand for generative AI accelerates. The latest foray beyond smartphones is seen by some as an attempt to compete with Nvidia’s AI software ecosystem CUDA, used for developing AI applications on Nvidia GPUs.
By providing a hardware-agnostic software platform, Qualcomm’s latest acquisition could make it easier for developers to move AI workloads across different vendors’ chips and potentially reduce dependence on any single provider.
Under the terms of the agreement, Qualcomm expects to issue up to 19.2 million shares of common stock to Modular’s equity holders.
The transaction, valued at about $3.92 billion based on Qualcomm’s most recent closing share price, is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.
