Qualcomm is in talks to acquire Tenstorrent, the AI chip startup led by celebrated chip architect Jim Keller, according to Tom's Hardware. The deal would value Tenstorrent at somewhere between $8 billion and $10 billion.
Tenstorrent designs AI accelerators and CPUs built on RISC-V, an open-source chip instruction set that has gained momentum as an alternative to the proprietary architectures that dominate most computers and smartphones today. The company has attracted attention in part because of Keller, a hardware legend credited with transformative work on chips at AMD, Apple, Tesla, and Intel before founding Tenstorrent.
For Qualcomm, the acquisition would represent a significant bet on AI hardware at a moment when demand for specialized chips — capable of running and training AI models efficiently — is reshaping the entire semiconductor industry. Qualcomm already makes chips for smartphones and PCs, but a deal of this scale would signal a serious push into the data center and AI infrastructure market currently dominated by Nvidia.
The reported price tag, up to $10 billion, underscores how valuable AI chip expertise has become: Tenstorrent remains a relatively young startup, and a figure in that range would make it one of the largest acquisitions in Qualcomm's history.
If the deal closes, it would give Qualcomm both a proven AI chip architecture and one of the most sought-after engineering minds in Silicon Valley — a combination that could reshape the competitive landscape for AI silicon beyond just phones and laptops.