Qualcomm's Master Plan: Building an End-to-End Dev Platform with Arduino
4Qualcomm's Master Plan: Building an End-to-End Dev Platform with Arduino
Qualcomm, the US mobile processor giant, has announced the strategic acquisition of Arduino, the popular Italy-based, two-decade-old open-source software development platform.
This move is part of Qualcomm’s broader strategy—following the recent purchases of Edge Impulse and Foundries.io—to establish a comprehensive, end-to-end development platform covering hardware, software, and cloud services for both open-source and proprietary solutions.
Founded in 2005, Arduino is recognized globally for democratizing access to electronics and programming through its simple, affordable hardware (like the Arduino Uno), which fostered the worldwide "maker movement." Its vibrant ecosystem boasts a significant scale, with nearly 37 million development kits downloaded globally in the last 12 months.
The acquisition is key to Qualcomm’s mission in edge computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), allowing the company to accelerate its vision to democratize access to its computing and AI products for the global developer community. Qualcomm and Arduino confirm that Arduino will maintain its independent brand, tools, and open-source mission, continuing to support a wide range of semiconductor manufacturers while leveraging Qualcomm’s technology to bring cutting-edge AI tools to its millions of developers and creators.