THE CIRCUITRYYour one-stop source for all tech news

Home/Tech/Qualcomm Nears Acquisition of Modular for Nearly $4 Billion

VERIFIEDBy Xavier Rivera· ·2 min read

Qualcomm Nears Acquisition of Modular for Nearly $4 Billion

Qualcomm is nearing a deal to acquire Modular for nearly $4 billion in a stock-and-cash transaction that would bring the startup's entire team onboard. The reported purchase would accelerate Qualcomm's move into broader AI software platforms and data-center chips beyond its traditional mobile business.

Source:Wired

Post

Qualcomm Nears Acquisition of Modular for Nearly $4 Billion

TL;DRAI · 60 sec read

Story updates1 update

Jun 24, 10:17 AM ET

Qualcomm announced the acquisition of Modular on June 24 in an all-stock deal valued at nearly $4 billion (up to 19.2 million shares).

Qualcomm is nearing a deal to acquire AI chip software startup Modular for nearly $4 billion, according to reports.

Qualcomm would pay with stock and cash incentives. The reported acquisition includes the issuance of up to 19.2 million shares of Qualcomm common stock, valued at just under $4 billion based on the company's last closing share price. It also would set aside $300 million for Modular employees. The transaction is targeting a close in the second half of 2026.

Modular developed a chip software platform and a proprietary coding language that lets developers write AI software capable of running across different chips without rewriting code for each one.

Modular's entire team would join Qualcomm. The startup's roughly 150 employees, including cofounders Chris Lattner and Tim Davis, are expected to move over as part of the deal. Modular was founded in 2022 by Lattner and Davis, both of whom previously worked on Google's TPU chips.

From The CircuitryThe Feed — live briefs across tech, all day.See what’s happening →

The startup built a platform for portable AI code. Modular developed a chip software platform and a proprietary coding language that lets developers write AI software capable of running across different chips without rewriting code for each one. Its goal was to create a unifying software layer to maximize performance from GPUs and CPUs while challenging systems such as Nvidia's CUDA and AMD's ROCm.

Its goal was to create a unifying software layer to maximize performance from GPUs and CPUs while challenging systems such as Nvidia's CUDA and AMD's ROCm.

The reported purchase would advance Qualcomm's AI expansion plans. Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon said in a statement that the company believes the future belongs to developer-friendly, horizontal platforms that run across diverse compute environments and give customers real choice in AI deployment. The deal comes nine months after Modular raised $250 million at a $1.6 billion valuation.

Qualcomm is pushing beyond mobile into data centers and AI devices. The company generates the vast majority of its revenue from mobile chips but has been working on 40 different chip designs for AI gadgets including smart glasses, jewelry, earbuds, pins, and watches. Late last year it acquired Ventana Micro Systems, a startup building server CPUs based on RISC-V, and is developing custom ASICs for data centers with ByteDance reported as an early customer.

Why this mattersAI · ~100 words

Tap a lens to see what this story means for you.

Reader-supported

DonateBuy me a coffee →Follow@thecircuitry_ →Follow@thecircuitry.to →

Reader-supported · The Brief

Liked this? The Brief brings you the whole day in tech, verified, every morning. Two minutes, free forever.

HELP US IMPROVE

Reader-supported

The Circuitry is a passion project I've always wanted to build, and I love the work behind it.

Running it costs real money. APIs, hosting, time. To keep improving the site and growing this into something useful for everyone, those costs have to be covered.

Any contribution is appreciated. If not, no pressure. Thanks for reading.

Buy me a coffee

Acquisitions AI Semiconductors

MORE IN TECH

Tesla and SpaceX confirm Terafab chip fab in Texas

Tesla and SpaceX have confirmed Grimes County, Texas as the site for their Terafab semiconductor megafactory, with the first phase costing roughly $16.8 billion. The project targets the largest chip manufacturing facility on the planet to supply over 1 terawatt of compute per year that exceeds current and future global production capacity.

OpenAI Urges Federal Judge to Throw Out Apple's Trade Secrets Complaint

OpenAI has filed a motion asking a federal judge to dismiss Apple's trade secrets lawsuit, describing the claims as meritless. The dispute, which follows a July suit and this week's injunction request from Apple, highlights tensions after their prior partnership on Siri and OpenAI's hardware push.

Meta introduces Muse Code, its terminal-based coding agent

Meta has released an early beta of Muse Code, a terminal-based coding agent driven by the updated Muse Spark 1.2 model and positioned against Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex. Substantially lower rates, including a contributor plan at $0.10 for every million tokens received, may encourage migration away from higher-priced options such as Anthropic's Sonnet 5.