An AI module for the Pi 5
Turbocharge Your Raspberry Pi

© Lead Image © Liubomyr Feshchyn, 123RF.com
What happens when the Raspberry Pi's makers and AI specialist Hailo collaborate on a project? We get an official AI kit HAT+ for the Pi 5 that adds an AI accelerator chip.
The Raspberry Pi AI Kit [1] consists of two components: a generic M.2 HAT+, an adaptor board that lets you connect any two M.2 modules (e.g., for NVMe storage) to the Raspberry Pi 5 and therefore directly to the PCI bus, and a Hailo-8L AI accelerator, which could also be installed on any other computer with an M.2 interface. This entry-level AI chip achieves a performance of 13 TOPS, which is half the number of tera-operations per second that you'd get with the standard Hailo-8 model.
As a first step, you need to assemble the system. Fit the four spacers, a GPIO extension connector, and a PCIe extension cable on the Raspberry Pi. Then slot the M.2 HAT+ onto the spacers and plug the ribbon cable into the connector on the HAT. Figure 1 shows the fully assembled, working system.
After restarting the Raspberry Pi, the Hailo board appears in the lspci
output as shown in Listing 1. The second line reveals that the installation of the AI accelerator was successful.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Dash to Panel Maintainer Quits
Charles Gagnon has stepped away as maintainer of the popular Dash to Panel Gnome extension.
-
CIQ Releases Security-Hardened Version of Rocky Linux
If you're looking for an enterprise-grade Linux distribution that is hardened for business use, there's a new version of Rocky Linux that's sure to make you and your company happy.
-
Gnome’s Dash to Panel Extension Gets a Massive Update
If you're a fan of the Gnome Dash to Panel extension, you'll be thrilled to hear that a new version has been released with a dock mode.
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.
-
Gnome Developers Consider Dropping RPM Support
In a move that might shock a lot of users, the Gnome development team has proposed the idea of going straight up Flatpak.
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.