Canonical on 25 August 2026
Tags: AI , IoT , Ubuntu , Ubuntu Desktop ,
Ubuntu Pro London, UK – August 25, 2026 – Following our initial collaboration announcement in March 2026, Canonical and Arduino (a subsidiary of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.) are excited to announce that VENTUNO Q is now generally available for pre-order, pre-loaded with Ubuntu.
VENTUNO Q is a dual-brain developer board designed for edge AI and robotics applications. With pre-orders opening today, developers, researchers, and industrial innovators can go straight from unboxing to executing AI inference and real-time physical actuation on a production-ready Linux environment.
With Ubuntu pre-loaded, users don’t need to worry about manual board support package (BSP) flashing, complex kernel configuration, or driver downloads. VENTUNO Q comes pre-installed with Ubuntu natively running on its primary Qualcomm Dragonwing™ processor.
How VENTUNO Q accelerates edge AI performance
At the core of VENTUNO Q is its dual-brain system architecture designed for physical AI applications where perception must trigger instant action:
- Primary AI processor: Powered by the Qualcomm Dragonwing™ IQ-8275 processor, delivering up to 40 dense TOPS of NPU AI compute alongside integrated CPU and GPU capabilities. It handles heavy AI workloads offline, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Visual Language Models (VLMs), multi-camera computer vision, and speech processing.
- Real-time microcontroller: An integrated STMicroelectronics STM32H5 MCU (STM32H5F5) running Zephyr RTOS. Linked to the main processor via RPC, it provides sub-millisecond, deterministic control for motors, actuators, and sensors without jitter.
The board comes equipped with 16 GB RAM and 64 GB expandable eMMC storage, providing ample memory to run concurrent multi-model inference pipelines locally at the edge.
Unified development tools
Running on top of pre-loaded Ubuntu, the Arduino® App Lab is designed to deliver a seamless development experience. Developers can execute private, local AI models out of the box without requiring a cloud connection:
- Pre-integrated AI models: Run local LLMs (e.g., Qwen 3, Gemma 4), VLMs, Whisper ASR, MeloTTS, MediaPipe gesture recognition, YoloX object tracking, and FOMO-AD visual anomaly detection directly on the device.
- Flexible toolchain (BYOM / TYOM): Bring Your Own Model (BYOM) from Hugging Face or Qualcomm AI Hub, or train custom models via Edge Impulse. Developers can write code in VS Code, Python IDEs, Docker, or traditional Arduino sketches.
- ROS 2 ready: Ubuntu on VENTUNO Q natively supports ROS 2, enabling NPU-accelerated perception, SLAM, and Nav2 navigation algorithms out of the box.
“VENTUNO Q redefines what’s possible at the edge by combining high-performance AI with deterministic, real-time control. We’re moving beyond just ‘smart’ devices to true physical intelligence. With Ubuntu and Arduino App Lab handling the complexity of the underlying stack – from containers to AI models – developers have the freedom to focus entirely on bringing their most ambitious ideas to life.”
Fabio Violante, Vice President and General Manager of Arduino at Qualcomm
Enterprise ready and production grade
“We’ve worked closely with Arduino and Qualcomm Technologies to deliver an ‘industrial-grade’ software stack as a starting point. By pre- a production-ready Ubuntu environment on VENTUNO Q developer boards, we’re removing the barriers between prototyping and commercial scale.”
Cindy Goldberg, Vice President of Cloud and Silicon Partnerships at Canonical
For teams moving from prototype to commercial deployment, the VENTUNO Q is designed to provide a direct scaling path:
- Hardware compatibility: Expansion options with support for standard Arduino ®UNO™shields and carriers, Modulino™nodes, and Raspberry Pi®HATs. - Rich connectivity: Features 3× MIPI-CSI camera connectors, 3× CAN-FD interfaces, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, 2.5 Gb Ethernet, HDMI, and multi-pin GPIO/PWM options.
- Prototype-to-production pipeline: Code developed on VENTUNO Q developer board can be easily ported onto commercial products such as the production-certified Dragonwing IQ8 System-on-Modules (SoMs) through the
Works with Arduino™program. Getting started
Download the official Ubuntu image for VENTUNO Q directly from Canonical at ubuntu.com/download/qualcomm-iot#ventunoq.
To order your VENTUNO Q board or explore technical specifications and documentation, visit arduino.cc/product-ventuno-q About Arduino
Arduino (a subsidiary of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.) is a leading open-source hardware and software provider and an accessible platform for creating interactive projects. With an estimated 33 million active users, the Arduino ecosystem has expanded over 20 years to address new demands and challenges, offering products for IoT, wearables, 3D printing, and embedded environments.
About Canonical
Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, provides open source security, support and services. Our portfolio covers critical systems, from the smallest devices to the largest clouds, from the kernel to containers, from databases to AI. With customers that include top tech brands, emerging startups, governments and home users, Canonical delivers trusted open source for everyone.
Learn more at https://canonical.com/ Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Arduino, VENTUNO, UNO, and Modulino are trademarks or registered trademarks of Arduino S.r.l.
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