Qualcomm is set to acquire London Stock Exchange (LSE)-listed semiconductor company Alphawave IP Group (Alphawave Semi) to accelerate its expansion into the data centre market. As agreed, Aqua Acquisition Sub, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, will purchase all issued and to-be-issued ordinary share capital of Alphawave Semi at an implied enterprise value of nearly $2.4bn.
Following the announcement, Alphawave Semi’s shares surged nearly 23% to 183.39 pence in London. Qualcomm’s share prices also increased by about 4%.
Under the deal, Alphawave Semi shareholders will receive 183 pence per share ($2.48), representing a 96% premium over the closing price on 31 March before Qualcomm expressed interest. Qualcomm has also proposed two alternative all-share offers allowing Alphawave Semi shareholders to opt for company stock instead of cash.
Notably, Alphawave Semi, which originally went public in May 2021 at a price of 410 pence per share, was valued at £3.1bn at the time of its listing. Qualcomm’s current offer values the company at less than half of its initial valuation.
Acquisition will support Qualcomm’s data centre ambitions
Alphawave Semi, established in 2017, focuses on high-speed wired connectivity and compute technologies. Its products, including IP, custom silicon, connectivity solutions, and chiplets, support high-growth sectors such as data centres, AI, data networking, and storage. The company employs around 830 people worldwide.
Qualcomm said that the acquisition will provide the company with key assets supporting its expansion into data centres. The high-speed connectivity and compute technologies of Alphawave Semi will complement Qualcomm’s next-generation custom processors, including the Qualcomm Oryon CPU and Qualcomm Hexagon NPU.
“Qualcomm’s advanced custom processors are a natural fit for data centre workloads,” said Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon. “The combined teams share the goal of building advanced technology solutions and enabling next-level connected computing performance across a wide array of high growth areas, including data centre infrastructure.”
US-based chipmaker Qualcomm is a key supplier for companies such as Apple and major Android manufacturers such as Xiaomi. The expansion into industries like data centres and personal computing will enable Qualcomm to further diversify its business.
The Alphawave Semi transaction is expected to close in the first calendar quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of certain conditions. The deal is not expected to face significant regulatory hurdles, particularly after Alphawave’s exit from its Chinese joint venture, WiseWave.
The acquisition of Alphawave Semi adds to a trend of UK tech companies being acquired by US firms. In the last 18 months, cybersecurity firm Darktrace and food delivery service Deliveroo left the LSE following their acquisitions.
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