Qualcomm has announced the acquisition of Italian open-source hardware and software company Arduino, assuring that Arduino's brand mission and community spirit will remain intact. Arduino enables developers to create devices using open-source microcontrollers (MCUs) that sense and interact with their environment, designed for rapid prototyping even by students and makers.
Qualcomm stated that Arduino will retain its independent brand, tools, and mission, while continuing to support a wide range of microcontrollers and microprocessors from multiple semiconductor providers. Crucially, Arduino's global developer base of over 33 million can now leverage Qualcomm's technology to streamline development processes.
The newly launched UNO Q marks the first collaboration between Arduino and Qualcomm, featuring a "dual brain" architecture—a Linux Debian-capable microprocessor (MPU) and a real-time microcontroller—to bridge high-performance computing with real-time control.
With Qualcomm's Dragonwing QRB2210 as the MPU, UNO Q is engineered to help enable AI-powered vision and sound solutions that react to their environment, ranging from sophisticated smart home solutions to industrial automation systems.
In addition, UNO Q is the first Arduino board to work with Arduino App Lab, a new, integrated development environment built to unify the Arduino development journey across Real-time OS, Linux, Python, and AI flows to make development faster and easier.
CNBC noted that while developers use Arduino products primarily for prototyping and validating ideas, they rarely transition directly into commercial production with Arduino hardware. Qualcomm's acquisition aims more at gaining insights into current developer community trends to inform future product development strategies.
Article edited by Jack Wu
