Qualcomm signs Meta as first data center CPU customer

Qualcomm unveiled its Dragonfly C1000 data center CPU Wednesday and announced Meta as its first major hyperscaler customer.Morningstar, Inc.+1
The deal marks Qualcomm's return to the data center market, where Intel and AMD currently dominate CPU supply alongside Nvidia GPUs.CNBC
Qualcomm shares surged in after-hours trading after the company raised its fiscal 2029 non-handset revenue target to $40 billion, according to CNBC.CNBC

Qualcomm announced on Wednesday a multi-generation agreement to supply data center CPUs to Meta , marking the chipmaker's most concrete step yet in its push to become a major player in the AI infrastructure market. The collaboration centers on Qualcomm's newly unveiled Dragonfly C1000 processor, which is expected to enter production in the second half of 2028.Morningstar, Inc.+2

The Dragonfly C1000 features more than 250 cores and frequencies exceeding 5 GHz, and will power Meta's next-generation server fleet under a deal covering multiple generations of CPU products, according to Qualcomm. The announcement came during Qualcomm's shareholder meeting, where the company also raised its financial targets considerably — projecting non-handset revenue for fiscal 2029 of $40 billion, up from a previous estimate of $22 billion, with a goal of $15 billion in data center sales alone.Investing.com+1

A Return to the Data Center

The Meta deal represents a milestone in Qualcomm's return to the data center market after previously scaling back due to cost constraints and legal challenges. CEO Cristiano Amon had signaled the company's ambitions as early as May 2025, when Qualcomm announced plans to build custom Arm-based CPUs designed to work with Nvidia's NVLink technology for fast communication with AI GPUs. The company secured Saudi AI firm Humain as its first data center customer in late 2025 for inference chips.reuters+4

Challenging the Incumbents

The data center CPU market is currently dominated by Intel and AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. , which supply the processors that work alongside Nvidia's GPUs in AI workloads. Qualcomm's stock surged 15% in after-hours trading on Wednesday following the announcement and upgraded financial projections.CNBC+1

Industry analyst Patrick Moorhead noted the deal's specifics on social media, confirming the Dragonfly C1000's production timeline of the second half of 2028. With Meta as its first major hyperscaler customer for CPUs, Qualcomm is betting that its mobile chip expertise — particularly in power efficiency and Arm-based architecture — can translate into data center competitiveness as AI infrastructure spending continues to accelerate.x

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