CRISTIANO AMON

Qualcomm's CEO on gladiators, where AI will live, and taking on Nvidia

- BY HARRY BOOTH/LISBON

You became CEO amid the pandemic and global chip shortages. How does that experience position you to navigate this new period of intense competition? I’ve been at Qualcomm for 30 years. We just believe in ourselves, and we just push forward. Everybody was “What do you guys know about automotive?” Or “Why are you going into PC? You don’t understand anything about computers.” Now, I hear the same thing. “What do you know about data centers?” I tell my team, “We are in the gladiator business.” If you’re a gladiator, you go to the Colosseum, there are three outcomes: you win, you lose, you both lose. [If] you win, the only thing you accomplish is you get to go to the Colosseum one more time. Success today means nothing. You have to constantly reinvent yourself.

Will AI devices displace the smartphone's primacy? Phones are not going anywhere, the same way laptops didn’t go anywhere. The fundamental difference is today, the entire ecosystem is around the phone. In future, the agent will be at the center. It won’t matter where you contact it from— phone or glasses.