The AI chip war just got a new challenger — and it’s Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM). The tech giant announced its AI200 and AI250 data center chips — designed to rival Nvidia’s H100 and H200 by offering faster, more efficient AI inference for large language models and generative AI applications. The AI200 supports 768 GB of LPDDR memory per card, while the AI250 debuts near-memory computing, providing 10× higher effective bandwidth and dramatically lower power consumption. Both are built for rack-scale AI workloads, featuring liquid cooling, PCIe scaling, Ethernet networking, and confidential computing for secure processing. The AI200 launches in 2026 and the AI250 follows in 2027, positioning Qualcomm as a major new force in the AI data center race. With competitors like Nvidia (NVDA), AMD (AMD), Intel (INTC), Google (GOOGL), and Amazon (AMZN) already investing billions, this could mark a pivotal shift in the AI hardware landscape. Qualcomm stock (QCOM) rose 0.97% premarket to $170.58 f...