Cali chip giant insists single-board computer house will remain independent

Qualcomm has acquired Arduino, maker of microcontrollers (and now single-board computers), in a move designed to boost its presence in edge computing, as evidenced by a new Arduino product based on one of its Dragonwing chips.

The move was announced at a joint press event in Turin, where Arduino rolled out its latest device, the UNO Q, which sports a CPU, GPU, and MCU (microcontroller unit), and is designed to run Debian Linux.

According to Qualcomm, the takeover is aimed at empowering developers with access to the firm's portfolio of edge technologies and products, but it also gives the California chipmaker the ability to get its technology into the projects Arduino customers are building, many of which end up in commercial and industrial systems.

"We will benefit tremendously from this Arduino partnership, as we are mainly a B2B company, and we need to be more accessible to the developer ...