Hardware · 2019-03-22

NVIDIA’s new mini computer

Artificial intelligence (AI) & all its amazing technological possibilities, is currently reserved for developers & companies with deep pockets. This is a sad situation, which deprives the industry of raw talent, talent that might very well produce something fresh & innovative. After all, it’s not always those with the money who have the best ideas.

With this speculative premise in mind, NVIDIA, a company that develops graphics cards for the gaming & machine learning industries, has released a mini-computer, with all the functionality usually reserved for mega-computing( with its prohibitive price tag). However this tiny DIY computer, which is aimed at the hobbyists market, is remarkably inexpensive, so inexpensive, in fact, that almost any techno enthusiast with ‘golden hands’ will find it affordable.

Aptly named the Jetson Nano, & launched  by CEO Jensen Huang at the recent GPU Technology Conference, this micro-computer is all about robotics, & has a NVIDIA graphics processor, as well as a standard ARM processor under its hood. This CUDA-X AI computer delivers 472 GFLOPS, & consumes as little as 5 watts of power. What all this means is that this little baby can drive spatially aware AI functionality. Yes, robots that are aware of their surroundings & react accordingly. Obviously, the Jetson Nano is also capable of driving IOT software in various formats, such as Smart Home devices & other interactive AI applications.

Specifications are as follows:

  1. GPU: 128-core NVIDIA Maxwell architecture-based GPU
  2. CPU: Quad-core ARM A57
  3. Video: 4K @ 30 fps (H.264/H.265) / 4K @ 60 fps (H.264/H.265) encode & decode
  4. Camera: MIPI CSI-2 DPHY lanes, 12x (Module) & 1x (Developer Kit)
  5. Memory: 4 GB 64-bit LPDDR4; 25.6 gigabytes/second
  6. Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet
  7. OS Support: Linux for Tegra
  8. Module Size: 70mm x 45mm
  9. Developer Kit Size: 100mm x 80mm

Advantageously, due to this computer’s small comparative size, it is energy efficient enough to run on battery power alone, another plus for ‘builders’ who might be on a tight budget.

With a price tag under $100 for the DIY version & under $130 for the production-ready model, the Jetson should find popularity in the ‘start up’ community at large, which is just the sort of thing NVIDIA is looking for with this campaign — they hope to see their processors widely adopted to produce scarcely imagined innovations. The doors of computing have opened, & we’re bound to see some remarkable efforts built on this initiative, which is what the industry is meant to be all about.

The Jetson Nano is available from the company’s website, Amazon, Seeed Studio & SparkFun Electronics, all of whom currently offer computing DIY kits to the home-builder community. These retail partnership should see the computer squarely in the hands of the next generation of innovators…exactly what NVIDIA has in mind.

Image Credit: NVIDIA

 

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