US chipmaker Qualcomm prepares for global layoffs amid major tech pivot

As of September 2025, the company had 52,000 employees, most working full-time. The company has been severely impacted by a consumer electronics sales slump this year amid rising memory prices. As reported by Reuters, Qualcomm’s shared have surged just 1.5% this year, underperforming gains of more than 12% for the S&P 500 benchmark and nearly 60% for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

The company best known for smartphone processors recently started pivoting to the data-centre market in light of the artificial intelligence boom.

In late July, the company’s forecast of its fourth-quarter profit laid out in its latest earnings report ended up below estimates. It also noted that revenue from Apple products would drop faster than expected. As the chipmaker taps into the rapidly growing AI data-centre market, it’s expeting most of its chip sales to come from businesses instead of smartphones in FY27.

Qualcomm CEO

Cristiano Amon has so far told the members of his staff in a memo that the forthcoming company cuts seek to build “a stronger performance culture,” and address the situation where Qualcomm “has consistently fallen short of expectations,” as quoted by Reuters.

The Qualcomm CEO further noted in the memo that the cuts would also take various factors into account, including business priorities, skills and expertisem and organisational needs.

“As we have expanded the business, so have the competencies and skills we require,” Amon wrote, according to Reuters. “We must have the right people in the right roles so they can perform at their best and the company can continue to succeed.”

Qualcomm on the data centre move

The major announcement came months after it was reported that Qualcomm is targeting $5 billion in revenue from the fast-growing AI data-centre market business by FY27 and $15 billion by 2029.

“We kind of replaced Apple with the data centre,” Amon said, Reuters quoted him in July.

Back in June, the company revealed a central processing unit for data centres called Dragonfly C1000, noting that Meta would use it once production starts in 2028. The CPU is being built for agentic AI and aims to provide computing performance without using excessive power.

Qualcomm’s CFO Akash Palkhiwala also said in an interview that the company’s current relationships, made through smartphone and other existing products, are bound to benefit with the firm’s pivot.

“This is not a new relationship. It’s the benefit of what we’ve delivered to them already on the edge, combined with the scale and the expertise and the confidence in Qualcomm, is what makes them engage with us on data centre,” Palkhiwala said, as quoted by CNBC.