Best known for years as a company powering smartphones, Qualcomm Inc (NASDAQ:QCOM) stock has surged over the last year as the technology giant continues to diversify its revenue stream and advance its position in key growth areas like artificial intelligence and data centers.
The company made its presence known at this year's Computex event.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon Labels 2026 ‘Year of the Agent'
Fresh off being part of an envoy of technology leaders travelling to China with President Donald Trump, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon gave a keynote speech at this year's Computex event.
In his speech, Amon labeled 2026 as the "Year of the Agent."
Amon said that the new currency of AI is tokens, with agents demanding trillions of tokens. This leads to an increased focus on power efficiency and cost, as well as performance.
The Qualcomm CEO highlighted his company as an enabler for the next phase of AI growth across smartphones, PCs, cars and industrial systems, as intelligent agents operate across devices and grow their use cases.
"We're building the products and the technology that will define this new era," Amon said.
Amon said as AI shifts from models to agents, Qualcomm is positioned to help supply the demand with a deep portfolio of solutions for AI, connectivity and compute.
"Agents become the center of your digital experience…it's not about an extension of the phone, and the digital ecosystem is no longer at the phone itself, in the OS and the applications. Those devices become endpoints for agents."
Amon said agents are already here and changing the demand for new devices and computing.
"This upgrade cycle can be one of the largest that the industry has seen."
At Computex, Amon also teased Dragonfly, Qualcomm’s new data center brand. The Qualcomm CEO said the company will bring its performance leadership into the growing market. More details will be announced at Qualcomm's Investor Day on June 24.
Amon said Qualcomm is already working with hyperscalers and global partners on Dragonfly.
Qualcomm Working with Microsoft
Amon also reinforced the comments about the "Year of the Agent" and how Qualcomm is working to help with several transformational shifts during a conversation with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella at Microsoft Build.
"In every generation of technology transition, we've seen a shift," Amon said. "And I think this one seems to be a very big one."
Amon said that agents are changing everyday experiences and getting AI closer to wearables and the next level of computing.
"You need a very power-efficient CPU. The whole silicon is designed for you to have a cloud-native experience, and then you have a lot of sensors. A lot of sensors for context."
Microsoft and Qualcomm have partnered on several initiatives, including on-device AI.
"We want to make it possible for anybody who is thinking of an agentic system to not just be bound to current devices, but to imagine that there can be many, many devices that carry that intelligence in different contexts," Nadella said.
The Microsoft CEO said the two companies want to build an open ecosystem.
Amon said he's proud of the partnership between the two technology companies and stressed that this is "just the beginning."
Qualcomm Stock Price Action
Qualcomm stock was up 5.17% to $240.84 on Tuesday versus a 52-week trading range of $121.99 to $259.92. Qualcomm stock is up 39.6% year-to-date in 2026.
Photo Courtesy: Qualcomm
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