Mergers and acquisitions occur often in the automation and technology space, especially among suppliers. Companies develop ecosystems with partners, and soon multiple organizations become one. Or sometimes a company has grown so large that it must divest or spin off a division that’s become too big.
In a span of two months, three significant acquisitions took place that will reshift the automation landscape.
Mitsubishi Electric’s acquisition of Nozomi Networks and its cloud-service platform, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) technology, in September could dramatically impact the emphasis placed on OT security going forward.
In October, Qualcomm announced plans to acquire Arduino, maker of the little microcontroller that could. Qualcomm’s interest is in edge technologies. The Arduino acquisition builds on Qualcomm’s recent integrations of Edge Impulse, known for its AI platform, and Foundries.io, known for its Linux-based DevOps platform.
Also in October, ABB revealed it had signed an agreement to divest its robotics division to SoftBank Group for $5.4 billion and not pursue its earlier intention to spin off the business as a separately listed company. In April, the ABB board of directors said it believed listing ABB Robotics as a separate company would optimize both companies’—ABB’s and ABB Robotics’—ability to create customer value, grow and attract talent. But along came SoftBank with its capabilities in AI, robotics and next-generation computing.
Notice that all three transactions include an AI component that suppliers are determined to leverage.
The acquisition of Nozomi Networks brings an AI-powered, cloud-first cybersecurity software business with scalability to Mitsubishi Electric. By combining its processing, graphics, computer vision and AI with Arduino’s simplicity, affordability and community, Qualcomm plans to supercharge developer productivity across industries. SoftBank’s next frontier is physical AI, and ABB has seen the advantages of artificial intelligence in robotics applications, exemplified by its investment in LandingAI vision AI for the ABB Robotics software suite.
Get your subscription to Control Design’s daily newsletter.
Arduino will preserve its open approach and community spirit while unlocking a full‑stack platform for modern development, with Arduino Uno Q as the first step. The Uno Q dual-brain platform interconnects a Linux Debian-capable Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 microprocessor (MPU) with a real-time STM32U585 microcontroller (MCU).
Following the acquisition, the more than 33 million active users in the Arduino community will gain access to Qualcomm Technologies’ technology stack and global support of technologies through its partner ecosystem. Remember what happens in ecosystems. Arduino sold its 10 millionth Uno board in 2021 and entered into a System Integrator Partnership agreement with DMC in 2023.
In addition to maintaining compatibility with the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) and Uno ecosystem, the Uno Q is the first Arduino board to work with Arduino App Lab, an IDE built to unify the Arduino development journey across real-time OS, Linux, Python and AI flows. App Lab is an open-source platform.
“ABB and SoftBank share the same perspective that the world is entering a new era of AI-based robotics and believe that the division and SoftBank’s robotics offering can best shape this era together,” said ABB CEO Morten Wierod.
The world is changing fast. It seems like just yesterday we were “sheltering in place” as part of a global plan to end a pandemic. And now we’re witnessing the dawn of the AI wave that is sweeping through technology.
