The acquisition, announced at Embedded World in Germany, will give Qualcomm access to Edge Impulse's edge AI platform, which currently supports more than 170,000 developers creating and deploying AI models across a wide range of edge applications and hardware.
The deal also provides Qualcomm with capabilities to scale IoT solutions at the network edge for use cases like reducing backhaul traffic to centralised data centres.
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Nakul Duggal, group general manager for automotive, industrial and embedded IoT, and cloud computing at Qualcomm, said: “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.”
Qualcomm plans to integrate Edge Impulse with its Qualcomm AI Hub, which the company claims can enhance the optimisation of AI models for its platforms, delivering up to 4x increased inference performance while reducing model size and memory requirements.
Edge Impulse users will be able to leverage Qualcomm's latest Dragonwing processors to support on-device AI inferencing and computer vision workloads.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, with Edge Impulse maintaining its current branding, being labeled as “a Qualcomm company”.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, with no timeline provided for when the deal is expected to close.
“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,” Duggal added.
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