Chip design company Arm is accelerating IoT software development with partnerships including the integration of Arm development tools into GitHub Actions.

And Qeexo and Nota.AI are integrating Arm Virtual Hardware for better accessibility and ease of deployment of machine-learning workloads.

Arm Virtual Hardware was unveiled a year ago. This cloud-based offering delivers virtual models of Arm subsystems and third-party development boards to let software developers, OEMs and service providers begin software development earlier than before.

Arm Virtual Hardware removes the need to wait for physical silicon, enabling software and hardware co-design without the complexity of building or maintaining complex board farms. Embedded systems developers have embraced this approach, which gives them access to more modern development practices such as MLOps and devops flows at scale.

Earlier this year, Arm went further by adding models of third-party development kits to this offering, allowing developers to accelerate the development of IoT products.

“We continue to receive extremely positive feedback from our developer community, who are keen to see even more choice and support for streamlining workflows in their chosen development environments,” said Paul Williamson, senior vice president at Arm. “Arm is committed to ensuring developers have the tools they need in the places they are innovating, which is why I’m really pleased to announce some fantastic new partnerships that offer native integrations of our cloud-based development tools, including Arm Virtual Hardware, to accelerate developer workflows.”

Arm Virtual Hardware has been integrated with GitHub Actions. With more than 90 million developers, GitHub is at the centre of the evolution of modern software development. On the hardware side, Arm’s computing footprint scales across multiple markets including IoT and embedded, with 230 billion Arm-based chips shipped to date.

GitHub and Arm are now partnering to accelerate the developer experience for embedded Arm devices with the integration of Arm development tools into GitHub Actions, a platform that allows developers to automate their build, test and deployment pipeline. The native availability of Arm tools, including cross-compiler and Arm Virtual Hardware, should allow IoT and embedded developers to move faster and get more out of Arm-based silicon.

Developers can now use the Arm compiler and cross-compiler natively within GitHub Actions, as well as access Arm Virtual Hardware models of Corstone-based compute systems and Arm Cortex-M processors via self-hosted and GitHub-hosted runners.

“We want to continue to make the advantages of Arm Virtual Hardware available wherever developers do their work, which is why we’re supporting integrations of Arm Virtual Hardware into the offerings of leading cloud-based development workflow providers,” said Williamson. “I’m also pleased to share two significant milestones in the AI space, with both Qeexo and Nota.AI integrating Arm Virtual Hardware, which will be available as a development target on their platforms later this year.”

He said these AutoML platforms were changing the paradigm for the accessibility and ease-of-deployment of ML workloads, a natural fit with Arm’s goals for Arm Virtual Hardware.

“We’re proud to work with these partners to empower developers to start sooner and work faster in bringing new innovations to market to address the huge opportunities in IoT,” he said. “These are just a few recent highlights that illustrate the progress we’re making since we radically simplified and accelerated software design for IoT and embedded devices with the introduction of Arm Virtual Hardware.”

Multiple cloud-based AI and IoT toolchains have already integrated Arm Virtual Hardware directly into their offerings, which he said meant developers could start sooner, test at scale and bring their innovation to market faster.

“Our ongoing investment and growing number of partnerships in the IoT and embedded market will continue to empower developers to innovate for a future built on Arm,” he said.