Qualcomm Acquires PickNik to Integrate MoveIt Pro

Qualcomm announced its acquisition of PickNik Inc. On September 23, 2026, at ROSCon in Toronto. The deal, which remains subject to customary closing conditions, aims to give developers an easier path from AI models to planning, manipulation, and real-time control. Both companies are demonstrating MoveIt Pro running on VENTUNO Q and Dragonwing robotics platforms at the event.

PickNik, founded in 2015 in Boulder, Colorado, is the developer and maintainer of the MoveIt open-source manipulation framework. The company's team began work on MoveIt as part of the Robot Operating System (ROS) project at Willow Garage. Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm's executive vice president for automotive, industrial and embedded IoT, and robotics, stated the acquisition strengthens its commitment to fostering an open robotics ecosystem. "Robotics is one of the most exciting frontiers of physical AI, and software is the connective tissue that turns great hardware into great robots," Duggal said.

MoveIt's open-source future

Qualcomm plans to keep MoveIt 1 and 2 open-source under their existing licenses. The company stated that roadmaps and resources will remain community-driven. MoveIt will stay vendor-neutral, continuing to support third-party hardware and run on a variety of platforms, not only Qualcomm chips. This hardware-agnostic design is seen as a key enabler of innovation, giving developers freedom to choose their robot, compute, and sensor components.

Strategic integration with Dragonwing

The core technical goal is closer integration between MoveIt and Qualcomm's Dragonwing robotics platforms. This is expected to create a more direct route for developers between AI models-such as vision-language-action and vision-language systems-and robot planning, manipulation, and real-time control functions. Nakul Duggal added that together, the companies plan to make it easier to build advanced robotic applications on Dragonwing while supporting openness. Qualcomm will start by integrating MoveIt with Arduino VENTUNO Q boards.

Industry impact

The acquisition signals a major shift as Qualcomm integrates an open-source leader to bolster its physical AI strategy. Both Qualcomm and PickNik are founding members of the Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA). Qualcomm intends to continue driving projects like Space ROS, a version of the ROS framework hardened for demanding applications such as space missions. Dave Coleman, founder and chief product officer at PickNik, stated his company's mission has been to provide industries with a powerful, open platform that accelerates innovation beyond traditional factories. He believes joining Qualcomm will accelerate that mission and expand investment in MoveIt as a leading AI training platform.

MoveIt's applications span industrial automation, service robotics, mobile manipulation, and physical AI. In 2024, PickNik renamed its commercial product MoveIt Studio to MoveIt Pro, reflecting its maturation into a professional-grade system with advanced runtime, decision-making, and orchestration capabilities. The recently released MoveIt Pro 9.0 includes enhanced perception-to-motion capabilities, redesigned teleoperation, and a training data collection system. PickNik has also partnered with organizations like Motiv Space Systems for NASA missions and landed Google as an early customer.

This move follows Qualcomm's acquisition of open-source hardware and software firm Arduino in October 2025 and the introduction of a general-purpose robotics architecture in January 2026. Qualcomm will integrate MoveIt with Arduino VENTUNO Q boards to create a direct path from AI models to real-time robot control.