Today, Edge Impulse is excited to announce its next step forward — we’ve signed an agreement to join the Qualcomm Technologies team.
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. just announced its entry into an agreement to acquire Edge Impulse. The closing of the deal is subject to customary closing conditions. This marks an exciting new chapter for us, opening up new opportunities to scale our technology and impact. Our team and mission remain the same, only now, we will have even more opportunities and capabilities to accelerate what we do best.
In 2019, Jan Jongboom and I set out to democratize machine learning on edge compute for millions of developers. Recognizing that the compute capabilities of microcontrollers had grown to the point where they were able to run domain specific AI models directly onboard, we realized there were an endless number of use cases that would benefit from moving AI from the cloud to the edge. But there was a missing piece: a way to easily build, optimize, and deploy edge and domain-specific AI models onto these devices.
Together we launched Edge Impulse, an end-to-end platform that streamlines the edge AI workflow. Instead of having to manually collect and format data, hand-code and train model architectures, convert and compile models, and test for viability, 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, from MCUs to CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs.
The ease of use and versatility that Edge Impulse provides has since proven highly valuable; the company supports customers from Fortune 100 companies launching AI-empowered devices globally to cutting-edge startups aiming to solve the planet's biggest problems with novel high-tech solutions. The universality of the platform has attracted collaborations with numerous hardware, cloud, and system integration vendors. And perhaps most importantly, the ease of use that Jan and I set out to develop has brought together a community of 170,000 developers and growing.
The Edge Impulse team is thrilled about what we have established — not just a platform, but an entirely new edge AI industry. And we are even more excited about joining Qualcomm Technologies following the close of the transaction.
Qualcomm: A global innovation leader
Qualcomm has been driving innovation in connectivity, wireless communications, and semiconductor solutions for 40 years. It's a relentless innovator that defined the entire cellular communications industry, and has created solutions for mobile, PCs, IoT devices, automotive, networking, and more. With its Qualcomm Dragonwing platforms, Qualcomm Technologies is bringing intelligence to the edge to help revolutionize entire new industrial and business segments.
By integrating with Qualcomm Technologies, Edge Impulse developers will have the ability to target Dragonwing platforms, which feature superior AI inferencing, computer vision, graphics and processing capabilities. This is already launched — you can try it out today.
What this means for Edge Impulse users
We remain committed to making edge AI easier and more accessible to everyone.
- More Options, More Power: Joining forces with Qualcomm Technologies will accelerate support for computer vision, audio, speech recognition, and Generative AI, on extremely capable Dragonwing processors.
- From MCUs to NPUs: 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. As always, you can deploy your models to your favorite hardware with Edge Impulse.
What this means for Qualcomm Technologies
Edge Impulse will add an important part to Qualcomm Technologies’ strategic approach to IoT:
- Intuitive Edge AI Workflow: Regardless of your experience level, benefit from a complete and intuitive edge AI development workflow. Go from data preparation and AI experimentation to optimizing and deploying AI models on a wide range of edge hardware, including Dragonwing processors, which you can try today.
- Fast-track Innovation: Accelerate the creation of high-performance IoT devices for enterprise and industrial applications. Leverage the new Edge Impulse integration with the Qualcomm® AI Hub to profile and improve performance of models targeting Qualcomm Technologies’ hardware.
How to deploy to Qualcomm Technologies’ Hardware with Edge Impulse:
Developer-first approach
Developer success is about building real-world solutions — including the use of AI capabilities to extract intelligence from data, and building the applications and services that will power the digital transformation. An engaged developer community is what allows IoT to reach its full potential. And together with Qualcomm Technologies, we're keeping developers as our first priority.
We're thrilled to see the places you'll take edge AI, and alongside Qualcomm Technologies, we're committed to supplying the best tools to help you get there. Get started with a free developer account at edgeimpulse.com/signup and start bringing intelligence to the edge.
Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Qualcomm and Qualcomm Dragonwing are trademarks or registered trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated.