Qualcomm announced it will acquire Modular Inc. for $3.9 billion in stock, issuing 19.2 million shares at a closing price of $204.13. The deal, slated to close in the second half of 2026, adds an open‑source AI‑native software stack to Qualcomm’s data‑center ambitions. Modular’s platform claims industry‑leading performance across diverse chip architectures.

Modular, founded in 2022 by former Google engineers Chris Lattner and Tim Davis, was created to address fragmented AI infrastructure. Qualcomm hopes the acquisition will let it compete more directly with Nvidia, whose ecosystems are often criticized as closed. By offering a unified stack that runs on cloud, smartphones and other devices, Qualcomm aims to broaden its AI services portfolio.

The transaction follows Qualcomm’s recent $2.4 billion cash purchase of Alphawave IP and a failed bid for NXP, signaling a shift toward software‑centric growth. Investors will watch whether the combined hardware‑software offering can capture data‑center spend currently dominated by Nvidia’s GPUs. The deal closes a strategic push to position Qualcomm as a broader AI infrastructure player.

With the acquisition, Qualcomm gains access to Modular’s talent pool and its open‑stack SDK, potentially accelerating time‑to‑market for custom AI accelerators. The move also diversifies revenue beyond mobile chip sales, giving the San Diego‑based firm a foothold in enterprise workloads as cloud providers seek flexible, multi‑vendor solutions.