Qualcomm Technologies said on Sept. 23, 2026, that it has agreed to acquire PickNik Inc., the Boulder company best known for maintaining MoveIt, open-source software for planning and controlling the movements of robot arms that runs on top of the Robot Operating System (ROS). Open source means anyone can use, study, change and share it. Because MoveIt is widely used for robot arms, the deal puts the main maintainer of software that many robot builders rely on inside a chip company, which is tying that software more closely to its Dragonwing robotics platforms while promising to keep it open. Terms were not disclosed, and the deal remains subject to customary closing conditions.
PickNik founder and chief product officer Dave Coleman wrote that MoveIt 1 and 2 stay open source under the existing license and that their plans stay community-driven. He added that MoveIt keeps working with any hardware and customers keep their support. Qualcomm executive vice president Nakul Duggal called robotics a frontier of physical AI, AI that senses and acts in the real world through machines such as robots and self-driving cars, and said the companies plan to keep supporting the openness that made MoveIt successful.
Qualcomm plans to tie MoveIt and its commercial version, MoveIt Pro, more closely to Dragonwing. It also says it will bring MoveIt to Arduino hardware, starting with VENTUNO Q boards, after its earlier purchase of Arduino. Coleman notes that both companies are founding members of the Open Source Robotics Alliance. Qualcomm and PickNik said they were showing MoveIt Pro running on VENTUNO Q and Dragonwing platforms at the ROSCon conference in Toronto that week.
Qualcomm has not said when the deal will close or what it is paying. It is also not clear how makers of other chips will fare with MoveIt support once PickNik is part of Qualcomm. For now, the openness pledges are statements of intent, and the Dragonwing and Arduino demos show MoveIt working on Qualcomm hardware, not that every MoveIt user will move to Qualcomm chips.