Four A.I. development boards compliant with 96Boards specifications were announced at Linaro Connect HK 2018 last month: HiKey 970, Ultra96, as well as ROCK960 PRO & Enterprise Edition.
So for we only knew pricing for Ultra96 ($249), but I’ve now noticed Hikey 970 “Super Edge AI Computing Platform” is now up for pre-order for $299.99 on Lenovator website, with shipping planned for the end of April. [Update: Also found on Seeed Studio for the same price]
Hikey 970 specifications:
- SoC – Huawei/Hisilicon Kirin 970 with 4x Cortex A73 @ 2.36GHz, 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.8GHz, Arm Mali G72-MP12 GPU, NPU (Neural Processing Unit) with 256MAC/cycle @ 960MHz
- System Memory – 6GB 1866MHz, 4 Channel LPDDR4x
- Storage – 64GB UFS storage, micro SD card slot, PCIe Gen3 on M.2 M key connector
- Video Output – HDMI 1.4 type A up to 1080p60 (TBC), 1x 4-lane MIPI DSI (via HS expansion connector)
- Video – MPEG2 @ 80 Mbps, MPEG4 @ 50 Mbps, H.264 @ 240 Mbps, H.265 @ 160 Mbps, VP8 @ 100 Mpbs, VP9 @ 120 Mbps
- Camera – 4-lane CSI + 2-lane CSI (via HS expansion connector)
- Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band WiFi + Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, GLONASS
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB 2.0 type C (OTG) port, 1x USB 2.0 type C host port
- Expansion
- PCIe Gen 3 mPCIe slot
- PCIe Gen 3 M.2 Key M slot
- 40-pin 96Boards Low-speed expansion header with 1.8V, 5V, GND, 2x UART, 2x I2C, SPI, I2S, 12x GPIO
- 60-pin 96Boards High speed expansion header with 4L MIPI-DSI, 2x I2C, SPI (48M), USB 2.0, 2L+4L MIPI CSI
- CAN V2.0B @ 1 Mbit/s
- Misc – 6x LEDs (WiFi, Bluetooth, 4x User)
- Power Supply – 8 to 18V via 4.75/1.7mm power barrel (12V/2A recommended )
- Dimensions – 100 x 85 x 10 mm (96Boards CE Extended)
The specifications on Lenovator show a HDMI 1.4 port limited to 1080p60, but hopefully it might be a mistake, as initially it was announced with HDMI 2.0a up to 4K 60 Hz with HDR, and Kirin 970 processor does support H.265 4K video decoding up to 60 fps.
The board can run Android (AOSP) or Linux distributions (Ubuntu/Debian), and supports Huawei HiAI SDK that delivers up to 25 times performance, and/or 50 times the power efficiency for A.I. applications. The latest HiAI SDK V150 supports Caffe, TensorFlow, TensorFlow Lite, and Android NN frameworks, and various tools.
I could not find detailed documentation for the board, but eventually resources should be made available on 96boards.ai.

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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