Qualcomm Acquires Edge Impulse to Enhance AI and IoT Capabilities

Qualcomm : to Bolster AI and IoT Capabilities with Edge Impulse Acquisition

Enables more than 170,000 developers to create, deploy, and monitor AI models for a wide range of edge applications and hardware 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: 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 [Qualcomm Developer Blog]. 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).

Qualcomm acquires edge AI development startup Edge Impulse - SiliconANGLE

Qualcomm acquires edge AI development startup Edge Impulse Qualcomm Technologies Inc. is acquiring Edge Impulse Inc., a startup that helps developers run artificial intelligence models on connected devices. The companies announced the deal today without disclosing the financial terms. San Jose, California-based Edge Impulse raised $54 million from investors prior to the acquisition. It provides a cloud platform that companies can use to train AI models optimized for connected devices. According to Edge Impulse, its software is used by more than 170,000 developers worldwide. AI models optimized to run at the edge are often trained on sensor data. For example, a neural network designed to detect when industrial equipment overheats might be trained on production line temperature measurements. Edge Impulse provides features for turning such measurements into AI training datasets. The company's platform includes tools that AI teams can use to create data pipelines. Those are software workflows that automate some of the work involved in assembling a training dataset from sensor readings. Such workflows can, for example, filter duplicate and erroneous records. Edge Impulse's platform also provides tools for performing feature engineering. This is the task of condensing raw sensor data into a form that can be more easily processed by AI models. A developer might, for example, turn a collection of temperature readings into a single average value that is simpler to analyze. After a software team creates a training dataset, Edge Impulse helps identify an AI model architecture suitable for the project at the hand. Connected devices often have limited processing capacity. Edge Impulse displays the hardware requirements of different AI architectures, which make it easier to find ones that are efficient enough to run on a company's connected devices. After developers train a custom AI model using Edge Impulse, the platform packages the algorithm into a C++ library. C++ is a programming language that offers better hardware-efficiency than Python, the go-to syntax for AI development. Edge Platform says that it can reduce neural networks' memory usage by more than 60%. The company offers its development platform alongside a device called BrickML. It's a compact, rectangular computing module designed to run AI models. Companies can attach it to industrial equipment, collect sensor readings and analyze the data locally using the onboard neural networks. "Edge Impulse gives developers a tool that automates data collection, simplifies model training, provides advanced optimization tools, and offers one-click deployment to many types of hardware," Edge Impulse co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Zach Shelby wrote in a blog post today. Qualcomm's acquisition of Edge Impulse comes a few weeks after the chipmaker debuted Dragonwing, a processor portfolio optimized for connected devices. Some of the chips in the product line include an integrated graphics processing unit for running AI models. Others feature reliability optimizations that allow them to operate at sub-freezing temperatures. Currently, Edge Impulse supports two Dragonwing processors: the QCS6490 and QCS5430. Both chips can be used to power ruggedized mobile devices, while the latter module also lends itself to robotics projects. Following its acquisition by Qualcomm, Edge Impulse plans to add support for more of the processors in the Dragonwing portfolio. "In addition to support for Qualcomm Technologies' hardware, we're continuing support for edge hardware from our wide partner base, including MCUs, CPUs, GPUs and NPUs," Shelby detailed.

Qualcomm bets big on AI with Edge Impulse acquisition

Qualcomm has acquired the AI platform Edge Impulse, known for aiding developers in creating machine learning solutions. The acquisition aims to enhance Qualcomm's machine learning software capabilities, particularly for its Dragonwing line of AI-powered chips. Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm's head of IoT, stated that the acquisition will reinforce the company's "leadership in AI" and support critical sectors such as retail, security, energy and utilities, supply chain management, and asset management. As part of the agreement, Edge Impulse will integrate its operations with Qualcomm but will retain its own offices, employees, and website. Edge Impulse co-founder and CEO Zach Shelby remarked, "Our team and mission remain the same, only now, we will have even more opportunities and capabilities to accelerate what we do best." Zach Shelby, an engineer and entrepreneur from Finland, founded Edge Impulse in 2019 with co-founder Jan Jongboom from the Netherlands. The duo previously worked together on IoT systems at the British chip company Arm. They developed a platform that significantly reduces the time required to build machine learning models for small devices including sensors, microcontrollers, and cameras. In a blog post, Shelby highlighted a significant market opportunity, saying, "Recognising that the compute capabilities of microcontrollers had grown to the point where they were able to run domain-specific AI models directly onboard, we realised there were an endless number of use cases that would benefit from moving AI from the cloud to the edge." To date, Edge Impulse has raised $54.3 million in funding. In 2021, it secured $34 million in Series B funding at a valuation of $234 million. Two years later, the company reported revenues of $14.7 million. Its platform currently serves over 170,000 developers who use it to create, deploy, and monitor AI models at the edge. Shelby attributed the platform's popularity to its ability to help developers avoid tedious tasks in setting up AI for edge devices. "Edge Impulse gives developers a tool that automates data collection, simplifies model training, provides advanced optimisation tools, and offers one-click deployment to many types of hardware, from MCUs to CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs," he stated.

Qualcomm acquires AI platform Edge Impulse to boost Dragonwing chips

Edge Impulse helps developers save time when setting up AI in edge devices Edge Impulse, a TNW community member that produces an AI platform for developers, has been acquired by American chip giant Qualcomm for an undisclosed sum. Qualcomm said it had bought Edge Impulse to boost its machine learning software capabilities, particularly for its Dragonwing line of AI-powered chips. Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm's head of IoT, said the acquisition would strengthen his firm's "leadership in AI" and tech services for "critical sectors such as retail, security, energy and utilities, supply chain management, and asset management." Under the deal, Edge Impulse will integrate its operations with Qualcomm's, but maintain its own offices, employees, and website. "Our team and mission remain the same, only now, we will have even more opportunities and capabilities to accelerate what we do best," said Zach Shelby, Edge Impulse's co-founder and CEO. Shelby, an engineer and entrepreneur from Finland, founded Edge Impulse in 2019 alongside Dutchman Jan Jongboom. The pair met while working on IoT systems at British chip firm Arm. At Edge Impulse, Shelby and Jongboom built a platform that helps developers to slash the time it takes to create machine learning models for small devices like sensors, microcontrollers, and cameras. Shelby said the team had identified a big gap in the market. "Recognising that the compute capabilities of microcontrollers had grown to the point where they were able to run domain-specific AI models directly onboard, we realised there were an endless number of use cases that would benefit from moving AI from the cloud to the edge," he wrote in a blog post. Edge Impulse has raised $54.3mn to date. The company was valued at $234mn at the time of its $34mn Series B funding round in 2021. Two years later, it reported revenues of $14.7mn. Its platform is currently used by over 170,000 developers to create, deploy, and monitor AI models on the edge. Shelby credited the platform's popularity to helping developers eliminate laborious and manual tasks in setting up AI in edge devices. "Edge Impulse gives developers a tool that automates data collection, simplifies model training, provides advanced optimisation tools, and offers one-click deployment to many types of hardware, from MCUs to CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs," he said.