Qualcomm to Acquire Alphawave in $2.4 Billion AI Play

Qualcomm announced a deal to buy British semiconductor company Alphawave for about $2.4 billion on Monday, marking its latest push to expand in the fast-growing AI data center market. Shares of Alphawave surged more than 22% on the news.

The move highlights a broader trend: U.S. buyers are swooping in to acquire British tech firms whose valuations have slumped amid economic uncertainty. Alphawave designs high-speed connectivity chips used in data centers—an area that Qualcomm sees as critical for reducing its reliance on the smartphone sector, where competition has intensified.

Alphawave shareholders will receive 183 pence per share, a nearly 96% premium to the stock’s price at the end of March before Qualcomm’s interest became known. Qualcomm also made two alternative all-share offers but said Alphawave plans to unanimously recommend the cash deal.

The acquisition follows Alphawave’s exit from a Chinese joint venture that had raised regulatory concerns. Analysts at Jefferies said they don’t anticipate major hurdles for the deal, given Alphawave’s departure from the China business.

“Alphawave has developed leading high-speed wired connectivity and compute technologies that are complementary to our power-efficient CPU and neural processing unit cores,” said Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. Shares of Qualcomm rose about 4% after the announcement, underscoring investor confidence in its broader AI strategy.