Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) announced a definitive agreement to acquire Alphawave IP Group plc (LSE: AWE), known as Alphawave Semi, in a transaction valued at approximately $2.4 billion. The deal, structured through Aqua Acquisition Sub LLC—an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm—is aimed at accelerating Qualcomm’s strategic push into the expanding data center market.
Alphawave Semi specializes in high-speed wired connectivity and compute technologies, offering intellectual property, custom silicon, connectivity products, and chiplets designed to enhance data transfer performance while reducing power consumption. Its solutions underpin critical infrastructure for emerging high-growth sectors such as data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), data networking, and storage.
Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s president and CEO, emphasized the strategic fit of Alphawave Semi’s technologies with Qualcomm’s own portfolio of power-efficient custom processors, including its Oryon CPU and Hexagon NPU cores. “Under Tony’s leadership Alphawave Semi has developed leading high-speed wired connectivity and compute technologies that complement our power-efficient CPU and NPU cores,” Amon stated. He highlighted the combined capability as enabling next-level connected computing performance across diverse growth markets, notably data center infrastructure fueled by rising AI inferencing demands and a shift toward custom CPUs.
Tony Pialis, CEO of Alphawave Semi, welcomed the acquisition as a transformative milestone. He underscored the benefits of uniting with Qualcomm’s scale and expertise to broaden product offerings, expand market reach, and accelerate technological innovation. “Together, we will unlock new opportunities for growth, drive innovation, and create a leading player in AI compute and connectivity solutions,” Pialis said.
The transaction remains subject to regulatory clearances, shareholder approval from Alphawave Semi’s investors, and sanction by the UK High Court, with completion anticipated in the first quarter of 2026. The acquisition aligns with Qualcomm’s broader strategy to deepen its footprint in data centers, leveraging its advanced processor technologies to meet surging demand for high-performance, low-power compute capabilities driven by AI workloads and evolving data center architectures.
