Intel, Qualcomm Intensify Focus on China’s Data Center Market

Intel and Qualcomm have long had a presence in China. We look at their efforts in the country, including in the data center market.

At the China IDF show in April 2014, Intel officials announced the company was launching a $100 million fund and creating an innovation center in China to accelerate the development of smart systems using Intel chips. At the show, CEO Brian Krzanich said that the “China technology ecosystem will be instrumental in the transformation of computing.”

In May 2014, Intel announced it is partnership with Chinese chip maker Rockchip in building mobile SoCs that will include Intel’s x86 platform and wireless modem technologies.

The world’s largest mobile chip maker created a fund aimed at investing in Chinese startups of all sizes in such areas as the Internet, e-commerce, semiconductors, education and health.

Intel in September 2104 announced a $1.5 billion investment in the state-owned Chinese company, which runs chip designers RDA Microelectronics and Spreadtrum Communications. Intel also got a 20 percent stake in the company.

In December 2014, officials with the chip maker said the company would invest $1.6 billion over the following 15 years to upgrade a chip factory in China in hopes of boosting its mobile chip ambitions.

Also in December 2014, Qualcomm took $40 million from its $150 million fund to invest in five Chinese startups in such areas as mobile, wireless and the Internet of things.

The company in February 2015 agreed to pay a $975 million fine and change its business practices in China to settle a 14-month antitrust investigation by the company’s National Development and Reform Commission into Qualcomm’s licensing policies.

Qualcomm in June 2015 partners with Chinese foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., Huawei Technologies and others in creating the SMIC Advanced Technology Research and Development Corp., a joint venture that will push R&D toward next-generation chips for the Chinese market and abroad.

In September 2015, the chip maker invested in a range of Chinese tech vendors that touch on such markets as robotics, cloud, big data and IoT. The companies include 99cloud, Bluebank Communication Technology, Hampoo, Ninebot, Nuovo Film, PraFly, AWcloud and Telink Semiconductor.

The chip maker and Letv Cloud Computing—China’s counterpart to YouTube—forged a partnership to develop and commercialize new types of visual technology, including 360-degree panoramas, augmented reality and virtual reality.

Qualcomm, 10 months after settling the antitrust investigation, in early December 2015 reached a patent licensing agreement with fast-rising Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi.

Later in December 2015, the chip maker signed up three more Chinese device makers in licensing deals: Beijing Tianyu Communications Equipment, Haier and QiKu Internet Network Scientific.

Qualcomm in January formed a partnership with Guizhou Province to create a joint venture called Guizhou Huaxintong Semi-Conductor Technology that will design and build data center SoCs for the chip maker. The joint venture received an initial investment of $280 million, and will be 45 percent owned by Qualcomm and 55 percent by the Guizhou provincial government.

Also in January, Intel announced a partnership with Tsinghua University and Chinese company Montage Technology Global Holdings, Intel and Tsinghua will develop products that include Intel Xeon chips and jointly built reconfigurable computing processor (RCP) modules for Chinese data centers that will address government security concerns. Montage will sell the products.