Qualcomm to Bolster AI & IoT Capabilities with Edge Impulse Acquisition
At Embedded World Germany, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced the entry into an agreement to acquire EdgeImpulse Inc., which will enhance its offering for developers and expand its leadership in AI capabilities to power AI-enabled products and services across IoT. The closing of this deal is subject to customary closing conditions. This acquisition is anticipated to complement Qualcomm Technologies’ strategic approach to IoT transformation, which includes a comprehensive chipset roadmap, unified software architecture, a suite of services, developer resources, ecosystem partners, comprehensive solutions, and IoT blueprints to address diverse industry needs and challenges.
“We are thrilled about the opportunity to significantly enhance our IoT offerings with Edge Impulse’s advanced AI-powered end-to-end platform that will complement our strategic approach to IoT transformation,” said Nakul Duggal, group general manager, automotive, industrial and embedded IoT, and cloud computing, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “We anticipate that this acquisition will strengthen our leadership in AI and developer enablement, enhancing our ability to provide comprehensive technology for critical sectors such as retail, security, energy and utilities, supply chain management, and asset management. IoT opens the door for a myriad of opportunities, and success is about building real-world solutions, enabling developers and enterprises with AI capabilities to extract intelligence from data, and providing them with the tools to build the applications and services that will power the digital transformation of industries.”
Strategic Approach to IoT
Widespread adoption of AI in IoT solutions is driven by the ability to augment or automate workflows through rapid data collection, AI-enabled analysis, and enhanced decision-making, allowing enterprises to benefit from improved operational flexibility and efficiency. Qualcomm Technologies is poised to capitalize on this trend through its leading position in enabling industrial transformation with IoT and edge AI technology leadership.
Since last year, Qualcomm Technologies has adapted its strategy to meet the requirements of various IoT segments providing integrated solutions that combine services, software, and hardware, designed to scale across multiple verticals, including consumer, security, healthcare, retail, energy, and enterprise.
The components of Qualcomm Technologies’ approach to IoT include:
– Comprehensive chipset roadmap: Application processors and connectivity chips tailored to meet the diverse requirements of industry sectors and devices
– Unified software architecture: Software designed for consistency and efficiency across platforms to reduce development and maintenance costs, and enhance security
– Suite of services: Cloud services and software-as-a-service capabilities to facilitate commercialization and expand the capabilities of industrial and embedded applications
– Developer resources: Hardware and software development kits to support IoT developers
– Ecosystem partners: A network of distributors, independent hardware and software vendors, design centers and system integrators, ODMs and OEMs
– Solutions: Purpose-built offerings developed in collaboration with industrial and enterprise customers, using the Company’s technologies and engineering expertise to tackle tough challenges
– IoT blueprints: Curated set of technologies, ecosystem partners and solutions to address 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 array of edge devices—with support for varied microcontrollers and processors featuring AI accelerators from multiple semiconductor providers. The development platform includes a comprehensive set of tools and features for data collection and preparation, model training, deployment and monitoring—all with an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface requiring little or no code at all. Developers can utilize Edge Impulse’s platform to build solutions for a wide range of applications such as asset tracking and monitoring, manufacturing, anomaly detection, and predictive maintenance systems—using various AI capabilities including computer vision, time-series data, audio events and speech recognition.
Qualcomm Technologies anticipates giving developers on Edge Impulse’s platform the ability to target Qualcomm Dragonwing™ processors, which feature superior on-device AI inferencing, computer vision, graphics and processing capabilities. Integration with Qualcomm® AI Hub enhances the optimization of AI models for Qualcomm Technologies’ platforms, leading to a peak of up to 4x increased inference performance, and reduced model size and memory footprint. Edge Impulse currently supports Dragonwing QCS6490 and QCS5430 processors and is scheduled to add support for additional Dragonwing processors for industrial and embedded IoT applications. Edge Impulse will maintain its current website (branded as “Edge Impulse, a Qualcomm company”) and remains dedicated to supporting developers and ecosystem partners.
For more information, visit Qualcomm Technologies’ booth at Embedded World (Hall 5, Booth 5-161).
About Qualcomm
Qualcomm relentlessly innovates to deliver intelligent computing everywhere, helping the world tackle some of its most important challenges. Building on our 40 years of technology leadership in creating era-defining breakthroughs, we deliver a broad portfolio of solutions built with our leading-edge AI, high-performance, low-power computing, and unrivaled connectivity. Our Snapdragon® platforms power extraordinary consumer experiences, and our Qualcomm Dragonwing™ products empower businesses and industries to scale to new heights. Together with our ecosystem partners, we enable next-generation digital transformation to enrich lives, improve businesses, and advance societies. At Qualcomm, we are engineering human progress. Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio. Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of our engineering and research and development functions and substantially all of our products and services businesses, including our QCT semiconductor business. Snapdragon and Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Qualcomm patents are licensed by Qualcomm Incorporated.
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