Qualcomm weighs Tenstorrent deal to strengthen AI chip push

Qualcomm is in early talks to acquire Tenstorrent, with a price under discussion somewhere between $8 billion and $10 billion, according to reports from The Information and Reuters. No agreement has been reached, no public timeline has been set, and the discussions could still fall apart.

Tenstorrent builds AI chips around RISC-V, an open chip design standard that lets companies tailor hardware without relying on proprietary architectures. Its profile is boosted by Jim Keller, whose chip design work spans AMD, Apple, Tesla, and Intel. For Qualcomm, the target appears to offer both intellectual property and hard-to-find engineering talent.

The potential deal would mark a push beyond Qualcomm’s core strengths in Snapdragon mobile processors and 5G modems used by Apple, Samsung, and others. Qualcomm is active in on-device AI, but it has little presence in data centre AI infrastructure, where Nvidia leads and AMD is investing heavily.