Companies specializing in power-efficient mobile chips are promoting their future use in data centers as an alternative to brawny, power-hungry Intel server processors.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mollenkopf said Qualcomm had no specific microserver products to announce, but he left the door open to a future move into the data center and cloud computing.

"I think there's going to be a tremendous amount of growth in computing and resources dedicated to supporting the cloud," Mollenkopf said in response to a question. "We look at that as an opportunity for a company like ours."

Qualcomm is the leading mobile chipmaker and a potential move into microservers could create a formidable challenge to smaller companies, like Advanced Micro Devices, working on their own microserver chips.

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Qualcomm unveiled new chips for cars and smart televisions.

In December, Qualcomm announced that Mollenkopf, the company's chief operating officer, would replace CEO Paul Jacobs starting in March.