Announcing his career move on LinkedIn, Kottapalli described the role as a "once-in-a-career opportunity" to innovate and scale new frontiers. His move signals Qualcomm’s continued ambition to challenge incumbents in the lucrative server silicon market, using Kottapalli’s extensive expertise.

Kottapalli’s did well at Chipzilla. He was Platform Engineering Group Director for Data Center Processor Architecture. His contributions spanned from the development of the first Itanium processor to serving as lead architect for a series of Xeon server processors. Notably, his work earned him an Intel Achievement Award for delivering record-breaking generational performance improvements in high-end server products.

While Kottapalli has not disclosed his specific focus at Qualcomm, the outfit has been doing well with its Snapdragon Elite PC chips, which outperformed Intel’s offerings and earned exclusive qualification for Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC badge.

Qualcomm's push into the server market is driven by its potential for high margins and a massive global fleet of enterprise and cloud servers, dominated by x86 architectures. Should Qualcomm develop competitive Arm-based server chips, it could provide energy-efficient alternatives to x86 silicon, appealing to hyperscalers seeking cost-effective solutions for energy-intensive workloads.

AI acceleration is another potential area of focus, with Qualcomm actively developing solutions in this booming field. Kottapalli's experience with GPUs positions him well to contribute to this endeavor, aligning with Qualcomm's vision to innovate across multiple silicon categories.