Research Notes

Qualcomm’s Dragonwing IQ10 Robotics Reference Design

Steve McDowell June 9, 2026

At the recent Computex 2026, Qualcomm introduced the Dragonwing IQ10 Robotics Reference Design (RRD), the company’s most concrete commitment to the physical AI market to date. The new platform consolidates compute, sensor interfaces, deterministic I/O, networking, and a layered software stack into a single enclosed reference design for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), industrial robotics, and humanoid platforms.

Microsoft: Project Solara & the Agentic Operating Plane for the Non-NVIDIA World

Steve McDowell June 7, 2026

At its recent Build 2026 event, Microsoft introduced Project Solara, a chip-to-cloud platform built specifically for devices whose primary interface is an AI agent. Solara

Cisco’s Full-Stack Play for Agentic Enterprise AI

Steve McDowell June 7, 2026

At Cisco Live 2026 in Las Vegas, Cisco unveiled Cisco Cloud Control, a unified management plane designed for human operators and AI agents to jointly run and defend enterprise infrastructure. The platform anchors Cisco’s AgenticOps operating model, unifying networking, security, compute, observability, and collaboration under a single login and a shared data layer.

IBM & Red Hat: Project Lightwell, Protecting Open Source Software

Steve McDowell May 29, 2026

IBM and Red Hat announced Project Lightwell, a $5 billion initiative to establish a trusted enterprise clearinghouse for open-source software security. The project deploys more than 20,000 engineers, augmented by AI, to identify, triage, validate, and remediate vulnerabilities across open-source supply chains at a scale that exceeds what most enterprises can achieve independently.

IBM: Anderon Quantum Foundry and the Industrialization of Quantum Hardware

Steve McDowell May 27, 2026

IBM and the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a Letter of Intent to establish Anderon, a standalone company that will operate the United States’ first pure-play quantum chip foundry.

The initiative has a combined commitment of $2 billion, including $1 billion in proposed CHIPS Act R&D incentives from the Department of Commerce and $1 billion in cash from IBM, supplemented by IBM’s intellectual property, fabrication assets, and an existing skilled workforce.

Dell Technologies: AI Data Platform and Storage Portfolio for the Agentic Enterprise

Steve McDowell May 26, 2026

At the recent Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, Dell announced a broad expansion of its AI Data Platform and storage portfolio, centered on the general availability of the Lightning File System (formerly Project Lightning), the introduction of Exascale Storage as a unified 4-in-1 rack architecture, the refreshed ObjectScale X7700 appliance, and enhancements to the Dell AI Data Platform’s orchestration, analytics, and search layers.