TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 7, 2026--
Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723, “Renesas”), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced that a subsidiary of Renesas has completed the acquisition of Irida Labs, a Greece-based company specializing in embedded software for AI-powered visual perception systems. The acquisition strengthens Renesas’ edge AI embedded processing offerings, a key secular growth area for Renesas. It also enables system-level solutions that integrate physical AI and software to power camera and machine vision systems across industrial, robotics, smart city, IoT, agricultural and healthcare markets. As part of Renesas’ Digitalization strategy, Irida Labs’ software and tools will be integrated into Renesas 365, a newly released platform that unifies electronics system development from discovery to development and lifecycle management.
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While the demand for intelligent systems at the edge continues to soar across industries, developers must often overcome growing complexity of AI system development. This includes the integration of power-constraint embedded processors and software, training and deploying AI models and addressing latency and security risks associated with data transmission. Vision AI software plays a critical role in interpreting and processing visual data from cameras and sensors widely used in industrial inspection, robotics guidance, in-cabin automotive sensing, traffic and infrastructure monitoring, smart retail analytics and safety and security systems.
The addition of Irida Labs into Renesas’ product portfolio addresses these emerging challenges. By combining Renesas’ AI-enabled RA microcontrollers (MCUs) and RZ microprocessors (MPUs) with Irida Labs’s comprehensive tool suite and lightweight Vision AI software, Renesas can now deliver high-performance, power-efficient edge AI solutions that are ready for deployment. Together, these capabilities reinforce Renesas’ progress toward fully integrated Vision AI system solutions.
“This acquisition accelerates our efforts to simplify how intelligence is designed and deployed at the edge,” said Gaurang Shah, Vice President and General Manager, Embedded Processing Product Group. “With Irida Labs’ Vision AI tools, software and highly competent AI engineers now part of Renesas, our solution brings together AI perception, embedded processing, development tools and system integration to significantly reduce the learning curve for developers. As a result, they can rapidly develop, train and deploy edge AI systems without deep AI knowledge.”
Vassilis Tsagaris, CEO & Co-Founder of Irida Labs, added, “The joining of Irida Labs into Renesas marks an important milestone in our edge vision AI journey. By combining Irida Labs’ edge Vision AI expertise and our PerCV.ai software with Renesas hardware and global ecosystem, we open up exciting new opportunities to deliver meaningful impact on edge AI worldwide. I am proud of what the team has built, and genuinely excited to take it forward together with Renesas , turning our shared vision into reality.”
Prior to the acquisition, Renesas and Irida Labs collaborated as partners to develop solutions combining Irida Labs’ PerCV.ai software with Renesas’ RA and RZ devices. Bringing these capabilities in-house enables Renesas to deliver more tightly integrated solutions quickly. Renesas also plans to integrate Irida Labs’ software and tools into its newly introduced intelligent, open cloud-based development platform, Renesas 365. At the general availability launch in March 2026, the Renesas 365 platform incorporated Renesas’ RA MCUs, software and toolchain, with additional capabilities to be added over time. The addition of Irida Lab’ software and tools will provide customers with a seamless, end-to-end development experience for Vision AI and deep-learning applications.
For more information on Renesas 365, visit: www.renesas.com/renesas365
About Renesas Electronics Corporation
Renesas Electronics Corporation ( TSE: 6723 ) empowers a safer, smarter and more sustainable future where technology helps make our lives easier. A leading global provider of microcontrollers, Renesas combines our expertise in embedded processing, analog, power and connectivity to deliver complete semiconductor solutions. These Winning Combinations accelerate time to market for automotive, industrial, infrastructure and IoT applications, enabling billions of connected, intelligent devices that enhance the way people work and live. Learn more at renesas.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
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Renesas Completes Acquisition of Irida Labs to Expand Vision AI Software Capabilities and Accelerates System-Level Vision Solutions
VATICAN CITY (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio opened a fence-mending visit to the Vatican on Thursday after President Donald Trump’s broadsides against Pope Leo XIV and the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran angered the Holy See and sparked ongoing sparring between the two American leaders.
Rubio, a practicing Catholic, had an audience scheduled with Leo, which was complicated at the last minute by Trump’s latest criticism of the Chicago-born pope. Leo has pushed back, calling out Trump’s misrepresentations of his views on Iran and nuclear weapons and insisting that he is merely preaching the biblical message of peace.
Rubio was also due to meet with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks in understated diplomatic terms. “Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio is heading to the Vatican and Italy on a fence-mending visit after President Donald Trump’s broadsides against Pope Leo XIV and the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran have alienated those allies.
Rubio, a practicing Catholic, will have an audience with Leo on Thursday, which was complicated at the last minute by Trump’s latest criticism of the Chicago-born pope. Leo has pushed back, calling out Trump’s misrepresentations of his views on Iran and nuclear weapons and insisting that he is merely preaching the biblical message of peace.
Meetings Friday with Premier Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani might not be much easier for America's top diplomat, given both have strongly defended Leo against Trump’s attacks and have criticized the Iran war as illegal — drawing the president's ire.
Rubio insisted this week that the visit had been in the works for a while but that “obviously we had some stuff that happened.”
The tensions began when Trump lashed out at Leo on social media last month, saying the pope was soft on crime and terrorism for comments about the administration’s immigration policies and deportations as well as the Iran war. Leo then said God doesn’t listen to the prayers of those who wage war.
Later, Trump posted a social media image appearing to liken himself to Jesus Christ, which was deleted after backlash. He has refused to apologize to Leo and has sought to explain away the post by saying he thought the image was of him as a doctor.
Rubio said Trump’s recent criticisms of Leo were rooted in his opposition to Iran potentially obtaining a nuclear weapon, which he said could be used against millions of Catholics and other Christians.
Trump “doesn’t understand why anybody — leave aside the pope — the president and I, for that matter, I think most people, I cannot understand why anyone would think that it’s a good idea for Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon,” Rubio told reporters Tuesday at the White House.
Leo has never said Iran should obtain nuclear weapons and that the Catholic Church “for years has spoken out against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt there.”
“The mission of the church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticize me for announcing the Gospel, let him do it with the truth,” Leo said late Tuesday, after Trump again accused him of being “OK” with Iran having a nuclear weapon.
Leo noted that the Catholic Church has always permitted countries to act in self-defense and acknowledged the church's “just war” tradition.
But with the advance of the age of nuclear weapons, “the whole concept of war has to be reevaluated in terms today," he said. “And I always believe that it’s much better to enter into dialogue than to look for arms.”
Rubio has often been called on to tone down or explain Trump’s harsh rhetoric. Trump also has criticized Meloni and other NATO allies for a lack of support for the Iran war, recently announcing plans to pull thousands of troops out of Germany in the coming months.
Giampiero Gramaglia, former head of the ANSA news agency and its onetime Washington correspondent, said he didn’t expect much to come out of Rubio's visit for Italian or Vatican relations. He, and other Italian commentators, believe Rubio instead was looking to smooth over relations with the pope for his own political ambitions as well as the upcoming midterm congressional elections and 2028 presidential race.
“I doubt Rubio has the role of conciliator for Trump,” he told Italy's Foreign Press Association. “I have the perception that Rubio’s mission is more about himself” and his political ambitions as a prominent Catholic Republican.
The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary in the Vatican’s culture office, said Rubio’s mission wasn’t to “convert” the pope to Trump’s side. Rather, Washington “has come to acknowledge — implicitly but legibly — that (Leo’s) voice carries weight in the world that cannot simply be dismissed.”
“The situation created by President Trump’s remarks required a high-level, direct intervention, conducted in the proper language of diplomacy: a semantic corrective to a narrative of frontal conflict with the church,” he wrote in an essay this week.
Journalist Massimo Franco, writing in the Corriere della Sera newspaper, said the Vatican's decision to not cancel the pope’s audience with Rubio after Trump’s latest broadside was evidence of its willingness to keep open dialogue.
But relations with the Meloni government, which is facing widespread Italian public opposition to the Iran war, are not so easily smoothed over. “Keeping the alliance with the United States firm while criticizing the president is showing itself to be increasingly difficult,” Franco wrote Wednesday.
Farian Sabahi, a professor of contemporary history at the University of Insubria who is of Iranian descent, said Meloni would be wise to more strongly condemn the war for the sake of putting Italy in a good position to rebuild Iran later. Italy is the No. 2 European Union trading partner with Iran, after Germany, working within EU sanctions.
“From a purely opportunistic standpoint, it would actually be advisable to condemn the Israeli-U.S. aggression precisely to give Italian companies the opportunity to do business, given that there are many other players on the international stage ready to enter the Iranian market,” she said.
Rubio said topics other than the Iran war were on the agenda for the Vatican visit, including Cuba. The Holy See is particularly concerned about the Trump administration’s threats of potential military action there following its January ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump has said frequently that Cuba could be “next” and even suggested that once the war with Iran is over, naval assets deployed in the Middle East could return to the United States by way of Cuba.
Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime Cuba hawk.
“We gave Cuba $6 million of humanitarian aid, but obviously they won’t let us distribute it," Rubio said. “We distributed it through the church. We’d like to do more.”
Lee reported from Washington.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Wife Jeannette arrive at Rome's Ciampino airport for a two-day visit to Italy and the Vatican, Thursday, May 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, Pool)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch upon hi arrival at Rome's Ciampino airport for a two-day visit to Italy and the Vatican, Thursday, May 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, Pool)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Pope Leo XIV arrives at the swearing in ceremony for 28 new Pontifical Swiss Guards in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio leaves the room after speaking to the media in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
