Qualcomm executive signaled an AI smartphone weeks before report of OpenAI partnership

Qualcomm’s stock rose Monday amid reports of a possible partnership between the San Diego chipmaker and OpenAI to develop smartphone processors.

TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in a post Sunday on social-media site X that the pair, along with Taiwanese semiconductor company MediaTek and Chinese manufacturer Luxshare, have plans to develop a new AI smartphone.

None of the companies commented on Kuo’s post. But if confirmed, the partnership would give a boost to Qualcomm’s revenue, Kuo said.

Mass production of the device is expected in 2028, Kuo said.

Instead of relying on a “pile of apps,” these new smartphones would use AI agents to anticipate and act seamlessly on behalf of the user, Kuo said in his post.

Although Qualcomm did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Qualcomm’s Durga Malladi, executive vice president of technology, planning, edge solutions and data centers, hinted at an agentic future during an interview earlier this month.

In short, he said that the current user interface for smartphones is archaic and laborious.

“If I want to do something today, first I have to navigate through a clutter of apps that all of us have on our phones, figure out where that app is, then I tap on it. That’s a user interface that’s been like that for almost 20 years,” he said.

The future looks very different. “You talk to it more often than you actually touch the screen,” said Malladi, describing a world in which you can tell an AI agent to order lunch, organize photos, get directions or optimize your schedule by dictating the action. “AI is the new UI.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also touched on this idea in November, when he used “walking through Times Square” as a metaphor for the overwhelming, chaotic experience of notifications and alerts on today’s smartphones.

Altman wants future devices equipped with smarter AI that will be able to "know everything you've ever thought about, read, said" and act based on a user’s real-time data.

It makes sense that OpenAI would be eager to enter the smartphone sector, said Kuo. The smartphone is the only device that captures the personal and environmental data necessary to deploy an AI agent. And “only by fully controlling both the operating system and hardware can OpenAI deliver a comprehensive AI agent service,” he said.

Malladi made no mention of OpenAI during the early April interview, but did gesture toward the broader shift underway.

“If you picked up your latest Samsung Galaxy phone, just for example, it has an agent,” Malladi said.

While developing hardware is a far cry from OpenAI’s core business, “smartphone hardware is already highly mature, so OpenAI can work with the supply chain to develop the device,” said Kuo.

Smartphones are and will remain the largest-scale device category for the foreseeable future, Kuo said. Qualcomm knows that well: 70% of its revenue comes from smartphone companies, despite the company’s efforts to diversify its portfolio.

Qualcomm shares rose by more than 12% on Monday morning, before giving up nearly all those gains in afternoon trading to close at $150.26, up 0.95%. The stock is down more than 13% year to date.

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This story was originally published April 27, 2026 at 12:40 PM.