What’s up with… Qualcomm, AMD, StarHub

• Qualcomm is in M&A mode
• AMD completes acquisition of AI infrastructure specialist
• StarHub trials cloud RAN with Nokia, Dell, Red Hat

In today’s industry news roundup: Qualcomm is buying an AI specialist and is ‘considering an offer’ for a UK chip designer; AMD has completed the $4.9bn acquisition of ZT Systems; Singapore’s StarHub has become the first telco in South-east Asia to trial cloud RAN; and much more!

Qualcomm’s M&A team has been busy. The wireless chip giant has announced the acquisition of MovianAI Artificial Intelligence (AI) Application and Research JSC (MovianAI), the former generative AI (GenAI) division of VinAI Application and Research JSC (VinAI) and a part of the Vingroup ecosystem in Vietnam, for an undisclosed sum. “As a leading AI research company, VinAI is renowned for its expertise in generative AI, machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. Combining VinAI’s advanced generative AI research and development (R&D) capabilities with Qualcomm’s decades of extensive R&D will expand its ability to drive extraordinary inventions,” noted the US wireless chip giant, which added that the move will “expedite the creation of advanced AI solutions for products like smartphones, PCs, software-defined vehicles, and more”. Jilei Hou, senior VP of engineering at Qualcomm Technologies, stated: “This acquisition underscores our commitment to dedicating the necessary resources to R&D that makes us the driving force behind the next wave of AI innovation. By bringing in high-calibre talent from VinAI, we are strengthening our ability to deliver cutting-edge AI solutions that will benefit a wide range of industries and consumers.”

Meanwhile, in the UK, Qualcomm is stalking British chip designer Alphawave IP Group. The listed company stated in an update to the London Stock Exchange that Qualcomm “is considering making an offer to acquire the entire issued, and to be issued, share capital of Alphawave,” though, “there can be no certainty that any firm offer will be made, nor as to the terms on which any firm offer might be made”. Qualcomm now has until the end of the day on 29 April to either make a bid or walk away. News of Qualcomm’s interest lit a fire under Alphawave’s share price, which is up by about 45% since Tuesday morning and currently trading at 137.1 pence, giving the company a current market value of just over £1bn. And the potential exists for a bidding war, if Qualcomm decides to make an offer, as Alphawave has also been attracting M&A interest from fellow British chip designer Arm. 

Meanwhile, in its ongoing efforts to catch up Nvidia, AMD has completed the $4.9bn acquisition of New Jersey-based AI infrastructure specialist ZT Systems, a move the chip giant describes as a “strategic transaction [that] combines industry-leading systems and rack-level expertise with AMD GPU, CPU and networking silicon and open-source software to address the $500bn datacentre AI accelerator opportunity in 2028”. The deal, first announced in August 2024, will also “accelerate the design and deployment of AMD-powered AI infrastructure at scale optimised for the cloud.” Forrest Norrod, executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Solutions business unit at AMD, stated: “With the rapid pace of innovation in AI, reducing the end-to-end design and deployment time of cluster-level datacentre AI systems will be a significant competitive advantage for our customers.” He added that, “Acquiring ZT Systems is a significant milestone in our AI strategy to deliver leadership training and inferencing solutions that are optimised for our customers’ unique environment, ready-to-deploy at scale, and based on our open ecosystem approach that combines open-source software, industry standard networking technologies and now ZT Systems’ leadership systems design and customer enablement expertise. We welcome Frank Zhang, Doug Huang and the talented ZT Systems team to AMD, where together we will offer customers both choice and speed to market, allowing them to invest in key areas where they choose to differentiate their AI offerings.”

Singapore telco StarHub has “successfully trialed South-east Asia’s first 5G cloud radio access network (cloud RAN) in collaboration with Nokia and Dell Technologies,” the companies have announced. “The trial is in line with StarHub’s Cloud Infinity programme that aims to help its customers accelerate their digital transformation journey,” and will “enable StarHub to deliver new services to its enterprise customers and build an evolution path to advanced 5G and 6G,” according to Nokia. Ayush Sharma, CTO at StarHub, noted: “StarHub is committed to delivering high-performing network and innovative services to our customers. This partnership will enhance our network’s performance, efficiency and resilience, while future-proofing it for emerging technologies. It also marks a key step in our Cloud Infinity journey, strengthening our ability to deliver cloud-native services and drive the future of connectivity.” As part of the trial, Nokia’s 5G cloud RAN solution was used to “place a carrier-grade call,” while the vendor’s MantaRay NM network management solution “ensured seamless interworking between the cloud RAN and purpose-built RAN”. Nokia’s virtualised distributed units (vDU) and centralised units (vCU) were running on Dell PowerEdge XR8620 servers. In addition, StarHub used Red Hat OpenShift to support cloud-native RAN functions across the network: The operator announced its partnership with Red Hat during MWC25. 

Cloud and datacentre sector analyst firm Synergy Research Group expects to see significant colocation facility growth in the Asia Pacific region during the second half of this decade. The US remains by far the biggest country for colocation facilities provided by the likes of Equinix and Digital Realty, and that won’t change, but North America doesn’t dominate the analyst firm’s list of future top-20 high-growth colocation markets and none of them feature in the top 10, the company notes in this press release. “Based on Synergy’s colocation forecast, the metros with the highest colocation growth rates over the next five years will be Johor (Malaysia), Lagos (Nigeria), Santiago (Chile), Chennai (India), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Queretaro (Mexico), Jakarta (Indonesia) and Mumbai (India). It is notable that five of these eight are in the APAC region, with the others being located in Latin America and Africa. While the US remains by far the largest country market, none of its metros make the top ten in terms of future growth rate, with Portland coming the closest,” noted Synergy Research. 

– The staff, TelecomTV