A conception car shows disconnected Qualcomm's car technology. The car was connected show astatine the Qualcomm booth astatine the IAA Mobility amusement successful Munich connected September 9, 2025.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
Qualcomm's self-driving exertion developed alongside BMW is expected to spark important involvement from different automakers keen to licence the system, the CEO of the U.S. spot elephantine told CNBC.
The comments underscore however Qualcomm, a large subordinate successful smartphone chips, is diversifying its concern into caller areas, with automotive among its fastest-growing divisions.
Last week, Qualcomm and German car elephantine BMW announced an automated driving strategy that is built connected the former's semiconductors.
It's called the Snapdragon Ride Pilot Automated Driving System and is simply a benignant of driver-assist feature. It allows hands-free driving connected definite roads oregon adjacent lane changing, but not for the car to beryllium afloat driverless.
The strategy volition debut connected the caller BMW iX3 and the companies accidental it volition beryllium disposable crossed 100 countries by 2026.
But portion the strategy has been developed with BMW, Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, told CNBC successful an interrogation Tuesday that the exertion has been designed to licence to different automakers.
"Everybody's been waiting for this moment, including ourselves, due to the fact that radical wanted to spot however it performs successful the street," Amon said, adding that the BMW iX3 volition motorboat with the automated driving exertion successful 60 countries. This volition let the strategy to beryllium demonstrated, helium said.
"I deliberation what I expect to happen, arsenic OEMs [Original Equipment Manufacturers] spot however it compares and however competitory it is, that's going to ignite a domino effect" of different carmakers wanting to usage the technology, Amon said.
The Qualcomm CEO said the institution had "made a batch of progress" successful talks with different carmakers, but is "not yet acceptable to announce" immoderate partnerships yet.
Qualcomm bets large connected autos
Qualcomm's biggest gross operator is the chips that powerfulness smartphones from players including Samsung and Xiaomi.
But Amon has looked to diversify the institution into caller areas, including PC chips, data halfway semiconductors and automotive.
He has large hopes for the car business, which brought successful astir $1 cardinal successful the June 4th and grew 21% year-on-year. The institution has antecedently said it expects automotive gross to turn to $8 cardinal by its 2029 fiscal year.
In an effort to execute that, Qualcomm is designing exertion for assorted parts of a car. Its chips tin powerfulness in-car amusement systems, for example, and connected Monday, the institution announced a concern with Google Cloud that allows automakers to make their ain integer assistants.
"[Qualcomm] are gathering a full ecosystem led by software," Murtuza Ali, elder expert astatine Counterpoint Research, told CNBC. "The main happening is they are a afloat integrated solution supplier for autonomy, which is what they were lacking."
Traditional car firms, peculiarly successful Europe, are thought to beryllium falling down erstwhile it comes to exertion specified arsenic autonomous driving, compared with their rivals from China.
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