Arduino VENTUNO Q Launching for Physical AI and Robotics
In 2026 Arduino will celebrate its 21st birthday by launching the VENTUNO Q. This board is made for physical AI where machine learning meets real time hardware control. Think of it as a souped up version of their dual brain setup geared toward serious robotics factory automation and smart devices on the edge.
The VENTUNO Q splits tasks between processors to handle AI and time sensitive operations separately. Here’s a peek
- Main Processor A Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 Series with an NPU that cranks out up to 40 dense TOPS for both generative and regular AI stuff.
- Real Time Microcontroller An STM32H5 chip focused on quick motor control and managing actuators.
- Memory and Storage 16 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage which you can expand if you need more space for models and data.
- System Software The main processor runs Ubuntu and Linux Debian while the microcontroller uses Arduino Core on Zephyr OS.
Unlike your average single board computer the VENTUNO Q is built for interacting with machines and grabbing data fast. It has
- Industrial Protocols Built in support for CAN FD PWM and fast GPIO.
- Vision and Networking Multiple MIPI CSI camera ports for handling synchronized camera feeds and 2.5 Gb Ethernet.
- Hardware Compatibility Works right away with Arduino UNO shields Raspberry Pi HATs Qwiic sensors and Modulino nodes.
- Robotics Comes ready with ROS 2 workflows.
Arduino wants to make things easy. They’re using the App Lab so you can run Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision Language Models (VLMs) offline. The software combines Arduino sketches and Python with pre made models for things like recognizing gestures figuring out poses and turning speech into text. If you’re an advanced user it also works with Edge Impulse Studio for creating and deploying your own AI models.
This board is perfect for
- Autonomous Robotics Robots and arms that require Visual SLAM and figuring out the best path.
- Offline AI Voice assistants and kiosks that process info locally.
- Edge Vision Automated inspections and security systems that use local VLMs to spot problems in real time.
The Arduino VENTUNO Q should be out in Q2 2026. You can grab it from the Arduino Store and retailers like DigiKey Farnell Mouser and RS.
