Sony investment will put AI chips inside Raspberry Pi boards

Sony's semiconductor division has announced that it's making a "strategic investment" in Raspberry Pi as a way to bring its AI tech to a wider market. The idea is to give Raspberry Pi users around the world a development platform for its Aitrios edge computing (on-chip) AI platform used for image sensing functions like facial recognition. "We are very pleased to be partnering with Raspberry Pi Ltd. to bring our Aitrios platform -- which supports the development of unique and diverse solutions utilizing our edge AI devices -- to the Raspberry Pi user and developer community, and provide a unique development experience," said Sony Semiconductor Solutions president and CEO Terushi Shimizu. The Raspberry Pi 4 and other devices from the company give users PC-like power in a small form factor. Originally designed as an educational platform to teach robotics, coding and more, it has become popular as a way for coders to prototype IoT (Internet of Things) and other devices. The addition of Sony's Aitrios could make it even more useful.