Qualcomm finalised a big-money acquisition of power-efficient CPU technology specialist Nuvia, setting plans to incorprate its innovations into silicon for a range of devices including smartphones and laptops.

The $1.4 billion acquisition was announced in January, with Nuvia then focused on designing technology for use in data centres as it had been since its formation in 2019.

In its statement today (16 March), Qualcomm president and CEO-elect Cristiano Amon said the deal enhanced the company’s CPU roadmap, bringing the opportunity to “provide differentiated products with leading CPU performance and power efficiency, as on-demand computing increases in the 5G era”.

Qualcomm plans to initially use its new internally developed CPUs in high end laptops, with the first chips expected to be ready in H2 2022.

It noted the technology could ultimately be used in a range of devices offering services including extended reality, infrastructure networking and driver assistant systems.

When it announced the deal, Qualcomm noted senior Nuvia staff would join the company. It added the move was backed by some of its major customers including Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Xiaomi, Lenovo, General Motors and Renault.