Raspberry Pi takes plunge into AI with new chip
Raspberry Pi, the renowned microcomputer firm, is set to enter the artificial intelligence (AI) market with a new chip. This chip will be incorporated into Raspberry Pi's camera software, and will have the ability to run AI-based applications, such as chatbots directly on the small computer. The move is part of a broader trend in hardware manufacturing, where companies are capitalizing on the growing demand for AI.
Raspberry Pi partners with Hailo for AI kit
Raspberry Pi has teamed up with chipmaker Hailo to create an AI Kit for its Raspberry Pi 5 microcomputer. The kit will feature Hailo's Hailo-8L M.2 accelerator and is expected to be available soon through Raspberry Pi-approved resellers worldwide, priced at $70. According to Orr Danon, CEO and co-founder of Hailo, their accelerator's "power consumption is below 2W and is passively cooled."
AI chip performance and market comparison
The Hailo-8L M.2 accelerator offers 13 tera operations per second (TOPS), a performance metric lower than chips designed for AI laptops, such as Intel's 40 TOPS Lunar Lake processors. Traditionally, high energy and computing power requirements have necessitated running most AI applications on the cloud. However, the industry is shifting toward smaller AI models and chipsets that require less power, enabling portable devices to run AI-powered applications without needing an API call.
AI integration trend among hardware makers
The trend of integrating AI into portable devices is being adopted by several hardware manufacturers. Microsoft has announced that its laptop partners will roll out Copilot Plus PCs with built-in AI facilities, like the controversial Recall. AMD has also unveiled new AI-branded Ryzen processors, emphasizing that its flagship chipsets can now handle generative AI workloads. NVIDIA, known for its H100 GPUs that train large language models like GPT-4o, will also be shipping laptops with AI chips.
