Qualcomm and IBM Expand AI Collaboration for Edge and Cloud

Ahead of Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and IBM (NYSE: IBM) have announced an expanded collaboration to drive enterprise-grade generative AI solutions across edge and cloud devices. This partnership focuses on enhancing AI immediacy, privacy, reliability, personalization, and energy efficiency while reducing costs for businesses deploying AI-powered applications.

By integrating IBM’s watsonx.governance for generative AI solutions with Qualcomm’s AI platforms, the collaboration will support IBM’s Granite models through the Qualcomm® AI Inference Suite and Qualcomm® AI Hub. This initiative enables businesses to deploy AI solutions with robust governance, monitoring, and decision-making capabilities, ensuring secure and efficient AI operations across edge and cloud environments.

Durga Malladi, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Technology Planning and Edge Solutions at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., emphasized the significance of the partnership, stating that it allows businesses to leverage AI solutions that are fast, personalized, and supported by strong governance frameworks. Ritika Gunnar, General Manager, Data and AI at IBM, highlighted the benefits of optimizing IBM’s watsonx.governance and Granite models for Snapdragon and Qualcomm Dragonwing platforms, enabling businesses to harness the power of AI regardless of data location.

Building on their CES announcement, Qualcomm and IBM will integrate IBM’s Granite Guardian 8B and Granite 3.1 8B models on Snapdragon® 8 Elite reference design and the Qualcomm Dragonwing™ AI On-Prem Appliance Solution. These models provide end-to-end generative AI solutions at the edge, offering built-in guardrails for AI deployment, monitoring, and decision-making. Combining on-device inferencing, low power consumption, and privacy features with IBM’s watsonx performance, this collaboration enhances AI security, efficiency, reliability, and governance.

Qualcomm Technologies has optimized IBM Granite 3.1, IBM’s third-generation flagship language model, for the Qualcomm AI Hub to help developers and businesses leverage AI at the edge. Additionally, the Qualcomm AI Hub and IBM watsonx collaboration will introduce governance and responsibility guardrails for on-device models through watsonx.governance capabilities. Qualcomm’s Cloud AI accelerators are now certified for Red Hat OpenShift, enabling large-scale deployment of IBM’s AI software suite, including watsonx, on Qualcomm Cloud AI hardware.

For more details on Qualcomm and IBM’s AI innovations, visit Qualcomm Technologies’ booth at MWC Barcelona (Booth #3E10, Hall 3, Fira Gran Via) or explore the Qualcomm Developer Blog.