Breakthroughs in processors, connectivity, and AI are redefining performance at the edge. Edge gateways, IPCs, and embedded OT servers are powering the next wave of intelligent systems.
Discover where the biggest opportunities are emerging and what is driving market momentum. Interim Findings now available.
Autonomous technologies are accelerating across automotive, aerospace, industrial automation, and healthcare. However, with great innovation comes great risk: ensuring safety, reliability, and trust in intelligent systems is now mission-critical.
VDC Research’s latest report examines how simulation-based validation, AI-driven verification, and multi-sensor testing are redefining development lifecycles. The research also highlights vendor strategies, regulatory pressures after high-profile accidents, and the race to establish standardized practices. Gain access to market forecasts through 2029, competitive vendor insights, and adoption trends shaping the future of autonomous systems.
AI copilots are rapidly becoming the competitive edge in embedded software development. From accelerating time to market to reshaping entire lifecycles, these intelligent assistants are driving major shifts across IoT, automotive, and safety-critical industries.
VDC Research’s new report delivers forecasts through 2029, with insights into vendor strategies, sector adoption, and the evolving security and compliance requirements shaping the future of embedded development.
The embedded and edge AI hardware market is entering a phase of unprecedented growth, creating new opportunities and competitive pressures for technology leaders worldwide. This rapid expansion is transforming product strategies, reshaping supply chains, and redefining the competitive landscape. Industry leaders including AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm are advancing in performance, integration, and vertical specialization, while innovative challengers are capturing share with disruptive architectures and AI-optimized designs.
This report delivers in-depth market analysis for embedded AI processors, AI accelerators, computing modules, motherboards, single-board computers, and integrated systems.
The 2025 Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit was fully centered on AI—the promised disruptor that has solidified its place in our personal lives and professional lives. For Qualcomm, the diverse array of AI applications presents an opportunity to blend its success in the mobile device market with its burgeoning business in IoT and embedded. With both its AI development solutions and chipsets, Qualcomm will continue to play a key role in enabling utility-scale edge AI applications. Moving inference closer to the user not only improves latency and responsiveness but also enhances privacy and personalization by leveraging local data, creating the potential for an agentic ecosystem that assists operations or individuals in their everyday lives. This VDC View highlights and analyzes the announced products and features as they relate to embedded and edge computing.
While Intel remains a market leader across several industries spanning embedded, personal, and enterprise/datacenter computing, the company has undergone a dramatic restructuring of its business and operations throughout the past year. The company is looking to become leaner, simpler, and more agile to compete amid growing competition in its home markets as well as to take advantage of emerging AI-driven revenue opportunities.
The 2025 Snapdragon Summit opened with Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon celebrating Snapdragon’s 10th anniversary by highlighting the company’s vision for a future transformed by AI. Amon and Qualcomm believe that “edge is essential for the future of AI.” While the development of AI models and certain intensive tasks will remain cloud-based, advanced computing architecture will enable on-device AI that is immediate, personal, and context-aware, truly functioning as a personal AI agent.
AI is transforming software development. However, in the complex, high-stakes world of IoT and embedded systems, it is only part of the story. Specialized tools, optimized workflows, and a deep understanding of real-world constraints such as size, weight, power, safety, and security remain essential. Engineering in this space demands precision, traceability, and domain-specific expertise.
This research note examines why AI-assisted coding is not a silver bullet for production-grade systems and highlights emerging vendor solutions tailored for specific chipsets, footprints, and real-time requirements. Learn where AI fits, where it falls short, and how to choose the right combination of tools and methods for reliable IoT innovation.
Mitch has spent years supporting senior leaders of operational and industrial technology companies as well as private equity investors that participate in the space. He is an active member of the Technology and Innovation Council at Graham Partners, a leading industrial technology focused private equity firm, and serves on the advisory boards of OptConnect (a top IoT connectivity provider) and DecisionPoint (a rapidly growing operational technology systems integrator). Mitch has worked closely with a wide range of industrial technology clients on a diverse array of growth opportunities and challenges including applications of AI, c-suite recruiting, strategic planning, new market identification and entry, product strategy, competitive positioning, revenue retention, value proposition identification and messaging, sales strategy and execution, and board presentations. Mitch holds a BA from Northwestern University and an MBA from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
