Arduino has a new board on the way, and this one is clearly aimed at the AI era. Ahead of Embedded World in Nuremberg, the company unveiled Arduino VENTUNO Q, a development platform designed for robotics, generative AI, and real-world automation.
If you have followed Arduino over the years, you probably think of it as a simple microcontroller platform used in classrooms and hobby projects. That image may need updating. Arduino is now owned by Qualcomm, and the new VENTUNO Q board reflects that relationship in a big way.
The platform is powered by Qualcomm’s Dragonwing IQ8 Series processor and is built to run AI workloads locally instead of relying on cloud services. The idea is to give developers the ability to build machines that can observe the world, make decisions, and physically respond to their surroundings without sending data off to remote servers.
The name VENTUNO comes from the Italian word for twenty one, which references Arduino’s upcoming 21st anniversary. The board also builds on the legacy of the familiar UNO line, though the hardware here is on an entirely different level.
VENTUNO Q uses a dual architecture design. A Qualcomm Dragonwing processor handles AI processing, while a dedicated STM32H5 microcontroller takes care of real time control tasks like motors and actuation. According to Arduino, the Dragonwing platform includes an NPU capable of delivering up to 40 dense TOPS of AI performance.
That power is paired with 16GB RAM and up to 64GB of expandable storage, allowing the system to run multiple AI models and inference tasks at once.
“With VENTUNO Q, AI can finally move from the cloud into the physical world. This platform makes it possible to build machines that perceive, decide, and act all on a single board,” said Fabio Violante, VP and GM at Arduino within Qualcomm Technologies. “Our goal is to make advanced robotics and edge AI accessible to every developer, educator, and innovator. VENTUNO Q is the natural evolution of Arduino’s mission, and a major step toward bringing real world intelligence to everyone.”
Qualcomm also highlighted the collaboration and its potential scale. Nakul Duggal, EVP and Group GM for Automotive, Industrial and Embedded IoT at Qualcomm Technologies, said the partnership is intended to put powerful edge AI hardware into the hands of a massive developer base.
“VENTUNO Q reflects our shared commitment to make edge AI more powerful and more accessible,” said Duggal. “By uniting Arduino’s developer ecosystem with the power of Dragonwing processors, we are making advanced edge AI available to millions of developers worldwide. This platform paves the way for a fresh surge of creativity and innovation, where devices and solutions can instantly comprehend their surroundings and respond, all at the edge.”
Arduino says the board can be used for a wide variety of AI projects that run fully offline. That includes local voice assistants powered by on device large language models, smart mirrors that respond to gestures, and public kiosks that use speech recognition and text to speech without sending data to the cloud.
Robotics is another obvious focus. The company suggests applications such as pick and place robotic arms guided by computer vision, service robots capable of recognizing and following people, and autonomous robots navigating environments using visual SLAM and path planning.
The board is also aimed at edge vision systems. That could include security systems that detect dangerous behavior, traffic monitoring systems that process video locally, or factory inspection tools that use vision models to spot manufacturing defects.
On the software side, the main processor runs Ubuntu and Debian based Linux environments with upstream support. The real time microcontroller runs Arduino Core on Zephyr OS to handle tasks that require precise timing.
Arduino is also pushing its App Lab development environment as the central tool for building projects on the board. Developers can combine traditional Arduino sketches with Python scripts and AI models in the same environment.
The company says the system will support local large language models, vision language models, speech recognition, gesture recognition, pose estimation, and object tracking entirely offline through Qualcomm AI Hub.
For developers building custom AI pipelines, App Lab is integrated with Edge Impulse Studio. Arduino says additional frameworks will be supported over time.
Hardware features are clearly designed with robotics and automation in mind. The board includes industrial I O such as CAN FD, PWM, and high speed GPIO for physical control. It also supports ROS 2 workflows and robotics applications out of the box.
Connectivity options include high speed connectors for multiple MIPI CSI cameras, audio systems, displays, and 2.5Gb Ethernet.
Despite the jump in capability, Arduino says the board remains compatible with much of its existing ecosystem. VENTUNO Q works with traditional UNO shields, Arduino Modulino nodes, Qwiic sensors, and even Raspberry Pi HATs.
That compatibility could make it appealing for developers who already have hardware built around the Arduino ecosystem but want more AI horsepower.
Arduino says the VENTUNO Q will launch in the second quarter of 2026 through the Arduino Store and authorized resellers.
Edge AI boards are starting to appear everywhere these days. The real question is whether developers will actually use this kind of hardware to build useful machines, or whether many of these AI features end up being little more than buzzwords. Still, the idea of running serious AI workloads locally on a developer friendly board will likely get plenty of attention.
Support independent tech journalism
NERDS.xyz is independently owned and operated. If you enjoy my coverage of Linux, AI, hardware, cybersecurity, and tech culture, consider supporting the site on Ko-fi.
Support NERDS.xyz