Qualcomm High Bandwidth Compute aims to compete with High Bandwidth Flash and Memory by stacking LPDDR just above the CPU to 'eliminate HBM tax'

Date:
Wed, 01 Jul 2026 20:05:00 +0000

Description:
Qualcomm's latest data center push centers around High Bandwidth Compute (HBC), which aims to address the ever-increasing costs of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Qualcomm introduces High Bandwidth Compute (HBC) memory architecture It leverages a hybrid design stacking LPDDR memory in a 3D space, leveraging multiple layers to
essentially replace what the current generation of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM4) does The move, which makes use of Qualcomm's extensive experience with LPDDR, is not only power-efficient but also offers massive amounts of bandwidth and up to 768GB of stacked memory for AI workloads Qualcomm is reigniting its Data Center ambitions, building on its expertise as a chip designer that excels in the low-power compute segment by focusing on an entirely new architecture: High Bandwidth Compute (HPC).

The solution is a hybrid take on existing LPDDR memory that Qualcomm has successfully stacked in 3D vertical space, not unlike the industry-standard High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and its latest iteration, HBM4, while delivering significant power savings along the way. The move is possible by Qualcomm offering a near-memory compute architecture that combines memory with a compute-based die, with the former stacked vertically on top of the latter, effectively enabling up to 133 TB/s. Latest Videos From Watch full video
here: An AI memory offering for the future? While the current industry standard, HBM4, is already widely used, Qualcomm's promised offering is expected to appear by mid-2027 as part of its next-generation AI inference accelerator, the AI250.

HBC Gen 1 offers a theoretical 768GB of capacity that HBM4 struggles to
match, and Qualcomm's published 133TB/s bandwidth is an achievement, given that modern HBM4 solutions offer approximately 3.3TB/s per stack at the
higher end. You may like Qualcomm targets Nvidia, AMD, Huawei with Dragonfly AI accelerator rack loaded with 43TB of LPDDR5x, future generations set to smash 7PB/s bandwidth Details of Intel's HBM-killer memory tech emerge, revealing nine layers, up to 9GB of DRAM capacity, and almost as much bandwidth as HBM4 that powers Nvidia's Vera Rubin AI platform Key partner to Nvidia, ASML and TSMC brings next-gen RAM and NAND replacements even closer

Some of these bandwidth claims, however, might be a bit of an unfair comparison, as while HBM4 delivers raw bandwidth, Qualcomm's solution (and
its theoretical speeds) is possibly in play only because it performs much of the compute on-die, making for an apples-to-oranges comparison in some ways.

Qualcomm, however, scores important wins with an AI industry increasingly obsessed with power , or rather, the lack of it, to continue many of their planned buildouts by touting its efficiency wins where it claims anywhere between 6x bandwidth per watt versus HBM for larger batch sizes and as much
as 200x efficiency gains when it comes to a mix of small and large inference batches, such as coding assistants. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our
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Qualcomm's partner list includes Meta and Microsoft , with the former's multi-generational agreement to use Qualcomms processors for AI being highlighted as an important win. Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadela, reassured investors by detailing the software giant's partnership with the chip
designer across the PC, local AI, and data center segments.

Given that Microsoft is increasingly looking to address the environmental footprint of its AI data center rollout, with its CEO already reassuring concerned parties and communities that the Redmond-based tech giant aims to
be mindful of the water and power footprints of both currently planned and future data centers, this makes efficiency an even more important theme of late.

Qualcomm's solution to 'eliminate the HBM tax,' however, does not exist in a void; Competing solutions such as High Bandwidth Flash , backed by Samsung , SanDisk and SK Hynix, are also shaping up as potential competitors that focus on a low-write, high-read situation that most AI inference workloads tend to be.

Perhaps more importantly, Qualcomm's solution and the impressive numbers it offers do not have any third-party's independent test results yet that could verify its efficiency claims, even as Microsoft's vote of confidence is seen as an important one for one of the most important players in the mobile SoC business as it gears up to take a share of a growing, but increasingly competitive datacenter pie in the coming decade. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/qualcomm-high-bandwidth-compute-aims-to-compete- with-high-bandwidth-flash-and-memory-by-stacking-lpddr-just-above-the-cpu-to-e liminate-hbm-tax


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