New York, January 6, 2026, 15:13 ET — Regular session
- Qualcomm shares rose in afternoon trading as investors digested CES product and partnership updates.
- The chip designer outlined an expanded automotive collaboration with Google and launched a new Snapdragon X2 Plus PC platform.
- Traders are watching for more design-win details and the company’s next quarterly update.
Qualcomm shares rose 3.4% to $182.25 in afternoon trading on Tuesday, after the chip designer rolled out new products and partnerships at CES 2026 in Las Vegas. The stock traded between $176.50 and $184.38 during the session.
The CES headlines land at a key moment for Qualcomm as it tries to widen its growth engine beyond smartphone chips and licensing, with autos, PCs and industrial devices in focus. Investors have leaned into the theme that more computing is shifting to the “edge” — devices such as cars and laptops — where Qualcomm sells processors and connectivity.
Qualcomm and Google said they expanded their decade-long work in automotive software, aiming to speed development of software-defined vehicles — cars whose features are increasingly controlled by software and updated over the air — and “agentic AI,” AI systems designed to take actions rather than only respond to prompts. “Our continued collaboration is more critical than ever,” Patrick Brady, a Google vice president of engineering, said in the release. 1
The companies said they will build a unified reference platform that aligns Snapdragon cockpit chips with Android Automotive roadmaps starting with Android 17, and they described cloud-based tools that let automakers develop and validate vehicle software without needing car hardware. Qualcomm also said it is bringing “Project Treble” concepts to Android Automotive lifecycle management, including a 10-year plan for critical software updates across multiple chip generations. 1
In PCs, Qualcomm Technologies said it launched the Snapdragon X2 Plus platform for Windows 11 “Copilot+” laptops, a category of devices built around on-device AI features. The company said the chip uses its third-generation Oryon CPU and delivers 80 TOPS — trillions of operations per second, a common measure of AI compute — on its neural processor, with devices from major manufacturers expected for purchase in the first half of 2026. 2
“Snapdragon X2 Plus platform delivers the power, efficiency and intelligence” for modern users, Kedar Kondap, senior vice president and general manager of computing and gaming at Qualcomm Technologies, said. 2
Qualcomm also unveiled a “comprehensive-stack” robotics architecture and the Dragonwing IQ10 Series, a system-on-chip — a single chip that integrates computing, graphics and other functions — aimed at industrial autonomous mobile robots and full-size humanoids. Figure founder and CEO Brett Adcock said Qualcomm’s platform is “a valuable building block” for the company’s humanoid roadmap. 3
The CES push sets Qualcomm against entrenched PC rivals Intel and AMD, while keeping it in the broader semiconductor tape led by AI and connectivity demand. Intel shares rose 1.9% and AMD fell 3.4% in afternoon trading, while Nvidia was little changed and Broadcom gained 1.2%.
But the path from CES demos to revenue can be uneven, especially in robotics, where deployment cycles and customer requirements vary widely by industry. CCS Insight said the robotics sector is “less well-defined” than autos and warned products will need to evolve to match commercial needs. 4
Next up, investors will look for more customer and design-win disclosures from CES, then turn to Qualcomm’s fiscal first-quarter earnings conference call on February 4. 5
