Raspberry Pi Receives Strategic Investment from Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation

[TheLostSwede]

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation ("SSS") and Raspberry Pi Ltd. ("RPL") today announced the agreement by SSS to make a strategic investment in RPL. The minority investment cements the relationship between the two companies, to provide a development platform for SSS's edge AI devices to the worldwide community of Raspberry Pi users.

"Our goal is to provide new value to a variety of industries and support them in solving issues using our innovative edge AI sensing technology built around image sensors," said Terushi Shimizu, President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation. "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."




"Sony Group is a longstanding and valued strategic partner. Our pre-existing relationship encompasses contract manufacturing, and the provision of image sensors and other semiconductor products," said Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Ltd. "This transaction will allow us to expand our partnership, bringing Sony Semiconductor Solutions' line of AI products to the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, and helping our users to build exciting new machine-learning applications at the edge."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Mathragh]

I'm not (yet) very good at deciphering this kind of language, but could this mean a new more "AI" focused product might be coming soon from Raspberry Pi?

 

[TheLostSwede]

I'm not (yet) very good at deciphering this kind of language, but could this mean a new more "AI" focused product might be coming soon from Raspberry Pi?

It's more like Sony is investing in RPi so people will use their cameras and software for AI solutions. They apparently sell some kind of SaaS service to go along with it as well.

AITRIOS | Sony Semiconductor Solutions Group

www.aitrios.sony-semicon.com

 

[Mathragh]

It's more like Sony is investing in RPi so people will use their cameras and software for AI solutions.

AITRIOS | Sony Semiconductor Solutions Group

www.aitrios.sony-semicon.com

So they expect that people will use their raspberry products with sony products?

 

[TheLostSwede]

So they expect that people will be going to use their raspberry products with sony products?

For development at least, yes, I'd think so. It's by far the easiest Arm based hardware you can get your hands on.

 

[Mathragh]

Thanks! And I agree, apart from actually being able to buy their full raspberry pi boards. Hopefully that'll get better in the near future.

More on topic still: the only thing AITRIOS is currently selling is a PoE camera based on an ESP32 system: https://developer.aitrios.sony-semicon.com/en/buy-now
While the raspberry pi pico (w) could probably replace the ESP32 in this regard, it still makes me wonder whether they're building a new product (or chip, like the RP2040 on which the pico is based) which fits the needs of AITRIOS even better.

EDIT:Of course, just using the Raspberry Pi 4 (or 5?) for hosting their platform might also be one of the goals here i guess.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Thanks! And I agree, apart from actually being able to buy their full raspberry pi boards. Hopefully that'll get better in the near future.

More on topic still: the only thing AITRIOS is currently selling is a PoE camera based on an ESP32 system: https://developer.aitrios.sony-semicon.com/en/buy-now
While the raspberry pi pico (w) could probably replace the ESP32 in this regard, it still makes me wonder whether they're building a new product (or chip, like the RP2040 on which the pico is based) which fits the needs of AITRIOS even better.

EDIT:Of course, just using the Raspberry Pi 4 (or 5?) for hosting their platform might also be one of the goals here i guess.

Yeah, it's all a bit unclear, but obviously there are a lot of third party solutions using Sony cameras that can be connected to RPi products, so maybe we'll see something like that from Sony in the near future.