Qualcomm'un Veri Merkezi Pivotu Gerçek, Ancak Piyasa Bunu Zaten Biliyor

Qualcomm’s Datacenter Pivot Is Real, but The Market Already Knows This

Ghazal Ahmed

Tue, September 15, 2026 at 2:43 PM GMT+3 3 min read

• QCOM -1.00%

Despite being late to the Data center party, QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) may finally have found the path to becoming a meaningful data center chip supplier. The problem, however, is that Wall Street may already be giving it credit for much of an opportunity the company has yet to prove it can capture.

On September 9, Piper Sandler analyst David O'Connor initiated coverage on Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) with a Neutral rating and a price target of $190.00. Piper believes there is an attractive multi-year AI opportunity for the stock, but also argues that many of QCOM's wins are reflected in its valuation.

The Bull Case for Qualcomm

Historically associated with smartphone chips, QCOM has been changing its AI strategy for its own good. The good news is that even though it is late compared to its peers in joining the data center bandwagon, AI remains in the "early innings of a multi-year growth story" and the market is currently "compute-starved."

For its June investor day, the company targeted more than $15 billion of data center revenue by fiscal 2029. According to Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala, the company's data ‌center business will bring in $5 billion for fiscal 2027, with $1 billion coming from the new custom-chip customers.

Piper sees $15 of earnings power for fiscal 2029, expecting data center wins to drive a four-year EPS CAGR of 16%. If the company delivers, Piper sees handsets could fall to roughly 50% of EBIT by fiscal 2029, which will ultimately reduce its dependence on the smartphone cycle.

Risk Watch

Even as data center revenue expands, the firm's research summary anticipates that handsets could still account for roughly half of EBIT in fiscal 2029. The data center story for Qualcomm is solid, but the question is whether the company can deliver outperformance considering how QCOM is late to the data center party compared to its peers.

That said, Qualcomm's design wins are already discounted in the share price.

Another thing, the firm highlighted, is how HBC, or High Bandwidth Compute, is a major part of QCOM's strategy. If hyperscalers adopt the architecture, it would allow more upside for QCOM.

Piper, however, believes that more traction and industry acceptance is needed for the HBC technology. If this doesn't happen, the risk is that QCOM will move roughly in line with what the market expects, and Piper wouldn't have the evidence it needs to become more bullish.

The key tension in the thesis is that Piper expects robust earnings growth for QCOM but also believes that design wins are already being discounted and more industry traction is needed for its HBC technology.

Hedge fund positioning shows a mix of conviction and caution for Qualcomm. At the end of the second quarter, 95 hedge funds held the stock, up from 71 in the prior quarter.

Q2 filings have further revealed that Marshall Wace held about 2.48 million shares after sharply increasing its position. Meanwhile, Altimeter Capital held roughly 1.88 million shares. Citadel reported sizable positions in both QCOM calls and puts.

Overall, Piper Sandler's rating is a reflection that QCOM's AI opportunity is real. However, investors are already paying a meaningful portion of the data-center transformation that QCOM is yet to deliver.

While we acknowledge the potential of QCOM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on thebest short-term AI stock.

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