U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Technologies has announced that it is expanding beyond mobile chips into the server processor sector dominated by Intel, which Chinese enterprises should take lessons and learn from, Web portal Sina.com reported.
Qualcomm senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher said at an event in San Francisco that Qualcomm has designed the chip containing 24 processing cores for computers that run corporate networks and form the backbone of the Internet. The chip, which is in preproduction, is open for testing to potential customers and partners.
According to the report, Qualcomm is trying to provide a low-cost alternative to Intel processors for operators of giant data centers that offer computing services on the Internet, which include Amazon, Google and Facebook.
Several years ago, Qualcomm used to rely on its patent-licensing business and began its chip business. The company is still the biggest smartphone chipmaker in 2015 despite the declining growth in the market since the beginning of this year.
Also this year, the company's shares have dropped 22 percent, which drove it to expand into other sectors, including wearable devices and smart home appliances. But its investments were mainly in the development and research of such products.
The report added that the core for the new chip will be based on the custom mobile core Qualcomm is developing for the Snapdragon 820 processor, showing that the cost of Qualcomm's expansion is low given the production of the new products is based on the existing mobile core for the Snapdragon 820.
Since the United States had prevented Intel from sending computer chips to China, Chinese companies are in a more disadvantaged position compared with Qualcomm. Because of this, the Chinese government may interfere and urge domestic companies to develop high-performance processing cores based on ARM-patent licensed designs.
According to the report, China's mobile phone and tablet makers could use the processors to create a complete manufacturing supply chain in the country.
Although Qualcomm's expansion into the server chips market may not be as bright, it could inspire Chinese firms in the sector, the report added.