With the AI NPU war heating up for computers, there has been a smaller, yet just as exciting race going on in the world of single-board computers (SBCs). These little devices are no bigger than a credit card, but they can pack some pretty good AI-based performance for something so small. In fact, despite their small size, I'd argue that AI on SBCs is a pretty huge deal. While we've seen a few AI-capable SBCs like the OrangePi appear over the last few months; now, the king of SBCs, the Raspberry Pi, is getting its own AI-based kit.

The Raspberry Pi gets its own AI upgrade kit

As announced on the Raspberry Pi website, the AI kit enhances the Raspberry Pi 5 with a Hailo-8L AI accelerator module connected via an M.2 HAT+. The processor means the unit can hit 13 TOPS, which isn't a lot when comparing it to a Copilot+ compatible computer, but is a huge amount for a device you can hold wholly within one hand.

The best part is that when you combine these new AI capabilities with the open-source nature of the SBC community, you'll find plenty of AI models that run locally and respect your privacy. If you don't use specific AI models due to the moral dilemma of scraping other's works without their permission, you can check the code and ensure the model you use doesn't do that. In fact, some of the most innovative Raspberry Pi projects we've covered include personalized AI in some way.

If you want to get started, you can grab the kit on the official Raspberry Pi website, or any supported retailers, for $70. Do note that the kit does not contain a Raspberry Pi 5, so you'll need to purchase it separately if you don't have one.