At CES 2026, Qualcomm not only showcased its grand vision for automobiles and robotics, but also unveiled a concrete strategic roadmap in the Internet of Things (IoT) field. In an interview, Suri Maddhula, Vice President of Product Management for Qualcomm's IoT Business, provided a detailed teardown of the new Dragonwing Q series and IQ series processors, revealing Qualcomm's recent...A series of acquisitions and collaborationsThe underlying ambition: not only to make the most powerful processor, but also to enable tens of millions of developers around the world to use Qualcomm's AI computing power "painlessly".
The chip's three arrows: covering every inch of the edge, from high-level computing to image analysis.
Qualcomm understands the extreme fragmentation of the IoT market and therefore adopts a precise "layered attack" strategy. Suri Maddhula first introduced the flagship chip Dragonwing Q-8750 for high-end AI computing. This chip boasts up to 77 TOPS of AI computing power, capable of running large language models with 110 billion parameters. Its powerful ISP image signal processor makes it the first choice for drones and high-end smart home appliances.
"In drone applications, you need to analyze the scene in real time and determine whether vehicles are illegally parked or traffic flow, which is precisely the strength of the Dragonwing Q-8750," Suri Maddhula pointed out. This processor is also suitable for the next generation of "AI Hub" home appliances, such as smart refrigerators or TVs that can understand user voice commands and perform complex interactions.
For the mid-to-high-end market, Qualcomm launched the Dragonwing Q-7790 processor. While its computing power was reduced to 24 TOPS, its video encoding and decoding capabilities were enhanced, supporting the latest AV1 hardware acceleration and 4K 60fps recording. This makes it the ideal "heart" for smart cameras (body cameras, dash cameras) and smart TVs in scenarios requiring powerful AI for image analysis.
In the field of robotics, Qualcomm has introduced the IQ series (such as IQ10 and IQ9). These processors are designed for high-load computing and can simultaneously handle joint control, path planning, and visual language action modeling (VLA) for humanoid robots, showcasing Qualcomm's technological potential in heterogeneous computing.
Software Defines Everything: The Strategic Implications of Acquiring Edge Impulse and Arduino
Suri Maddhula stated, "If the hardware specifications are strong, but the developers don't know how to use them, it's all for nothing." Therefore, Qualcomm continues to make large-scale investments and acquisitions in the software ecosystem.
The recent acquisition of Edge Impulse, a provider of ML Ops machine learning maintenance platform services, allows developers to directly use existing open-source models to complete quantization and optimization with a "one-click" process, and deploy them directly on Qualcomm's NPU, thereby significantly reducing the development threshold. Even engineers who do not understand the underlying chip architecture can extract hardware performance.
The recent acquisition of Arduino, further embracing the open-source community, and even the announcement of the launch of Arduino products equipped with Qualcomm chips, such as the Uno Q, highlight Qualcomm's desire to leverage the long-tail effect of up to 3300 million Arduino developers worldwide to expand the development of the Internet of Things ecosystem.
Another key acquisition was the purchase of Focus AI, a provider of point-to-point video analytics solutions. This allowed Qualcomm to leverage its technology to offer "out-of-the-box" AI tools in areas such as retail and factory security, solving the challenge that system integrators used to have to piece together algorithms themselves.
Regarding whether Qualcomm will continue to expand its IoT applications through external acquisitions, Suri Maddhula explained that it will mainly depend on future technological gaps and actual needs, but it is expected to be one of the ways Qualcomm rapidly expands its technological capabilities.
The Future of Robots: Energy Efficiency is the Decisive Factor
Regarding the development of humanoid robots, which are currently popular in the market, Suri Maddhula explained that there are many aspects to consider, including operational safety, data privacy, and compliance with local regulations. The energy consumption challenges behind the automated operation of robots are clearly the key to whether robots can be commercialized.
Suri Maddhula believes that the market cannot accept that robots must frequently return to recharge for additional power during actual use. Therefore, given that many basic necessities (such as ensuring operational safety) are met, Qualcomm's greater technological advantage lies in its ability to significantly extend the robot's operating time through its years of experience in low-power design in the mobile phone industry.
In addition, Qualcomm's designs support a variety of operating systems, including Android, Windows, and Ubuntu Linux, which is the most mainstream operating system in the robotics field, ensuring that developers can seamlessly migrate existing projects.
Analysis of viewpoints
Qualcomm's IoT strategy has now shifted from simply "selling chips" to "selling platforms" and "selling experiences".
Qualcomm's technological strengths have historically lay in communications and mobile phone chips, but in the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) market, the developer ecosystem is often more important than hardware specifications. Therefore, through acquisitions of Edge Impulse and Arduino, Qualcomm is highlighting its efforts to complete the final piece of the puzzle in terms of software usability.
With the Dragonwing Q and IQ series IoT chips now fully deployed, coupled with a focus on software experience, Qualcomm is attempting to replicate its dominance in the mobile phone market into the larger and more complex world of "physical AI".
