Qualcomm (QCOM): Buying The Robot Brain Software
Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) sits on Layer 2 of the robotics stack — processing and edge compute, the silicon brains inside the machine. On September 23, 2026, Qualcomm agreed to acquire PickNik, the Boulder, Colorado company that stewards MoveIt, the open-source motion-planning framework that a very large share of the world's research and commercial robot arms are built on. Terms were not disclosed, and the stock barely moved. Elena and Theo unpack why this matters more than the share price suggests: it is Qualcomm's third robotics-adjacent purchase in under a year, following Arduino…
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