Qualcomm is acquiring Colorado-based robotics software company PickNik, the firm behind the MoveIt open-source robotics manipulation framework.

This acquisition is intended to strengthen Qualcomm’s commitment to fostering an open robotics ecosystem, providing developers with the tools, software and frameworks needed to move more efficiently from research and experimentation to prototyping, deployment and production at scale.

In addition to remaining open-source, MoveIt is expected to offer better integration with Qualcomm’s Dragonwing robotics platforms, providing developers with a more streamlined path from AI models such as VLAs and VLMs to planning, manipulation and real-time control.

“Robotics is one of the most exciting frontiers of physical AI, and software is the connective tissue that turns great hardware into great robots,” said Nakul Duggal, executive vice president at Qualcomm (www.qualcomm.com). “PickNik has earned tremendous trust within the global robotics community through its stewardship of MoveIt and its commitment to open-source innovation. Together, we plan to make it easier for developers to build advanced robotic applications on Dragonwing robotics platforms, while continuing to support the openness and collaboration that have made MoveIt successful.”

Built atop the Robot Operating System (ROS), MoveIt has been used by developers, students, researchers and commercial robotics organisations worldwide to create robotic applications in nearly every industry, including industrial automation, service robotics, mobile manipulation and emerging physical AI systems.

“Since our founding, PickNik’s mission has been to provide industries with a powerful, open platform that accelerates innovation and development of advanced robotics, well beyond traditional factories,” said Dave Coleman, founder and chief product officer of PickNik (picknik.ai). “Joining Qualcomm will allow us to accelerate that mission, expand investment in MoveIt as a leading AI training platform for robotics, and deliver even more value to developers while preserving the openness, community collaboration and cross-platform support that have always been central to our approach.”

Qualcomm and PickNik recognise that MoveIt’s value comes from its openness, broad adoption and active developer community. Accordingly, Qualcomm intends for MoveIt to remain open-source under its existing licence with community-driven roadmaps and open resources. It also intends to continue supporting MoveIt across third-party hardware providers. MoveIt’s hardware-agnostic design is a key enabler of innovation, giving developers the freedom to choose the robot, compute platforms and sensor components that best fit their needs.

Qualcomm and PickNik are both founding members of the Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA) and Qualcomm intends to continue driving major projects including Space ROS, a hardened version of ROS optimised for critical applications such as space exploration. Qualcomm says it will continue to support the open-source development of MoveIt and ROS.

As part of the acquisition, MoveIt, MoveIt Pro – PickNik’s commercial platform designed to support robotics systems – and future PickNik technologies, are poised to become more closely integrated with Dragonwing robotics platforms. This integration will enable developers to take advantage more easily of Dragonwing’s AI, heterogeneous computing, connectivity and real-time robotics capabilities to help simplify robotics development, shorten deployment timelines and accelerate innovation across a broad range of robotic applications.

Developers building on Dragonwing should benefit from optimised support for MoveIt’s motion planning, manipulation, perception and kinematics capabilities, helping move from prototype to production faster while maintaining the flexibility to develop for diverse robotics architectures and deployment environments.

Starting with Arduino Ventuno Q boards, MoveIt integration with Arduino aims to make robotics, edge AI and heterogeneous compute more accessible. This integration seeks to extend powerful motion planning and autonomy capabilities to target millions of developers, helping shorten the journey from prototype to production-ready robots.

At last week’s ROSCon show in Toronto, Qualcomm and PickNik displayed MoveIt Pro (picknik.ai/pro/) running on Ventuno Q and Dragonwing robotics platforms.

The closing of this transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.