At Embedded World trade fair in Germany, Qualcomm Technologies announced an agreement to acquire EdgeImpulse. This acquisition will enhance Qualcomm's portfolio of products for developers and solidify its leading position in artificial intelligence, thereby providing strong support for AI products and services in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector.

The completion of this transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. This acquisition is expected to complement Qualcomm Technologies' strategic vision for its IoT transformation, which includes a comprehensive chipset roadmap, a unified software architecture, a suite of services, developer resources, ecosystem partners, integrated solutions, and an IoT blueprint designed to address the diverse needs and challenges across industries.

Nakul Dougel, General Manager of Qualcomm Technologies' Automotive, Industrial & Embedded IoT and Cloud Group, stated, "We are very pleased to have the opportunity to significantly enhance our IoT offerings with the Edge Impulse advanced AI end-to-end platform, which will complement our IoT transformation strategy. We expect this acquisition to solidify our leadership in AI and developer empowerment, and enhance our ability to provide comprehensive technology to key industries such as retail, security, energy and utilities, supply chain management, and asset management. The Internet of Things opens up countless opportunities, and the key to success lies in building actionable solutions that enable developers and businesses to leverage AI capabilities to extract intelligence from data and provide them with the tools they need to build applications and services, thereby driving digital transformation across industries."

Internet of Things (IoT) Strategic Approach

The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in IoT solutions benefits from its ability to enhance or automate workflows through rapid data acquisition, AI analytics, and augmented decision-making, enabling businesses to benefit from greater operational flexibility and efficiency. 

Qualcomm Technologies, with its leading position in IoT and edge AI technologies, is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend and drive industry transformation.

Since last year, Qualcomm Technologies has adjusted its strategy to meet the needs of various IoT sectors, providing integrated solutions combining services, software, and hardware, aiming to expand into multiple verticals including consumer, security, healthcare, retail, energy, and enterprise.

Qualcomm Technologies' IoT solutions

• Qualcomm Technologies' IoT solutions comprise the following components:

• Comprehensive Chipset Roadmap: Application processors and connectivity chips designed to meet the diverse needs of various industries and devices.

• Unified Software Architecture: Software design designed to maintain consistency and efficiency across platforms to reduce development and maintenance costs and enhance security.

• Service Suite: Cloud services and Software-as-a-Service capabilities designed to facilitate commercialization and expand functionality for industrial and embedded applications.

• Developer Resources: Hardware and software development kits supporting IoT developers.

• Ecosystem Partners: A network of distributors, independent hardware and software vendors, design centers and system integrators, ODMs, and OEMs.

• Solutions: Customized solutions developed in collaboration with industrial and enterprise customers, leveraging the company's technology and engineering expertise to address critical challenges.

• IoT Blueprint: A curated selection of technologies, ecosystem partners, and solutions to meet the needs of multiple industries.

Edge Impulse

Edge Impulse's end-to-end edge AI platform enables over 170,000 developers to easily create, deploy, and monitor AI models on a wide range of edge devices. The platform supports a diverse range of microcontrollers and processors from multiple semiconductor vendors and integrates AI accelerators. This development platform includes a comprehensive suite of tools and functions for data acquisition and preparation, model training, deployment, and monitoring—all through an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface requiring virtually no coding. Developers can leverage Edge Impulse's platform to build solutions for a variety of applications, such as asset tracking and monitoring, manufacturing, anomaly detection, and predictive maintenance systems, utilizing a wide range of AI capabilities including computer vision, time-series data, audio events, and speech recognition.

Qualcomm Technologies expects to enable developers on the Edge Impulse platform to use Qualcomm Dragonwing™ processors, which offer superior on-device AI inference, computer vision, graphics, and processing capabilities. Integration with Qualcomm® AI Hub enhances AI model optimization for Qualcomm Technologies platforms, resulting in up to 4x improved inference performance while reducing model size and memory footprint. Edge Impulse currently supports Dragonwing QCS6490 and QCS5430 processors and plans to add support for more Dragonwing processors to meet the needs of industrial and embedded IoT applications. Edge Impulse will continue to use its existing website (branded as "Edge Impulse, Qualcomm") and is committed to supporting developers and ecosystem partners.

Source: Qualcomm

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