VIA Joins In The AI Race, Linux/Android Support For Their New Developer Kit

It's been a while since last seeing any interesting products out of VIA with having been focusing on digital signage solutions and fabricating some basic ARM boards. The company has been exploring deep learning and AI and today announced the VIA Edge AI Developer Kit.

The VIA Edge AI Developer Kit isn't powered by any of their own ARM SoCs (or VIA-owned WonderMedia) or even VIA/Zhaoxin x86 processors, but rather have tapped Qualcomm with their Snapdragon 820E platform.

The Edge AI Developer Kit makes use of the Snapdragon 820E embedded platform paired with a VIA SOM-9X20 SOM module and a carrier board with 13MP camera module for real-time video capture. The VIA SOM-9X20 module measures in at 8.2 x 4.5 cm and with the Snapdragon 820 SoC is also 64GB of eMMC flash, 4GB LPDDR4, USB 3.0, HDMI 2.0, etc.

As far as software support goes, they are delivering an Android 8.0 BSP for the Edge AI Developer Kit. Beginning next month they plan to release a Linux BSP derived from Yocto 2.0.3.

Those interested in learning more about this Linux/Android-powered Edge AI Developer Kit can do so at ViaTech.com. The complete kit will set you back $629 while just the module and carrier board are $569 USD and if you want a 10.1-inch MIPI LCD touch panel that is an additional $179.