Nvidia has announced the new Jetson Nano at the 2019 GPU Technology Conference.
The new AI computer is designed to be accessible to "makers, inventors, developers, and students," and as evidence to that, it's coming in with a $99 price tag.
New Jetson Nano
The Nano is powered by a quad-core ARM Cortex-A57 MPCore processor coupled with a Maxwell architecture-based GPU with 128 cores. According to Nvidia, it's capable of delivering 472 GFLOPs or gigaflops and running neural networks and high-resolution sensors at the same time.
It does all that while consuming only between 5 and 10 watts. In addition, the module measures at only 70 mm x 45 mm, which makes the Nano the smallest Jetson device — the developer kit measures at 100 mm x 80 mm.
Out of the box, the kit can run Linux, and it's compatible with plenty of popular accessories and peripherals. It also has 4 GB of RAM, 16 GB of eMMC 5.1 Flash storage, microSD card support, Gigabit Ethernet, and pretty much every connector for cameras, displays such as HDMI 2.0, and the like, including four USB ports to work with.
"The Jetson Nano Developer Kit is exciting because it brings advanced AI to the DIY movement in a really easy-to-use way. We're planning to introduce this technology to our maker communities because it's a powerful, fun and affordable platform that's a great way to teach deep learning and robotics to a broader audience," Chris Anderson of DIY Robocars, DIY Drones, and Dronecode, said.
Where To Order
Pricing is typically the problem that sets DIY enthusiasts back from buying a Jetson device. The AGX Xavier developer kit is priced at $1,299 and the TX2 at $599, after all. At that, the new Nano can be considered as a game changer with its $99 price tag, as it makes AI computing more accessible.
It's already up for preorder at Nvidia's website. There's also a "production-ready" variant targeted at businesses for $129.
