Arm makes strategic investment in Raspberry Pi

Arm investment Raspberry Pi

Arm has just acquired a minority stake in Raspberry Pi through a strategic investment in order “to deliver critical solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) developer community.” Paul Williamson, SVP and GM, Internet of Things Line of Business, Arm explains the rationale behind the investment:

Arm and Raspberry Pi share a vision to make computing accessible for all, by lowering barriers to innovation so that anyone, anywhere can learn, experience and create new IoT solutions.

With the rapid growth of edge and endpoint AI applications, platforms like those from Raspberry Pi, built on Arm, are critical to driving the adoption of high-performance IoT devices globally by enabling developers to innovate faster and more easily. This strategic investment is further proof of our continued commitment to the developer community, and to our partnership with Raspberry Pi.

Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi founder and CEO, also provided remarks:

Arm technology has always been central to the platforms we create, and this investment is an important milestone in our longstanding partnership

Using Arm technology as the foundation of our current and future products offers us access to the compute performance, energy efficiency and extensive software ecosystem we need, as we continue to remove barriers to entry for everyone, from students and enthusiasts, to professional developers deploying commercial IoT systems at scale.

There was no detail about the amount invested or further details about the agreement so that’s about all that we know. I don’t usually write about business news, but in this case, Raspberry Pi has also been a RISC-V member since January 2019, and it’s unclear how Arm’s investment may influence future development of RISC-V chips and boards by Raspberry Pi.

While I think there’s zero chance that the Linux SBCs from the company will use a RISC-V processor in the near to medium term, so I was expecting a potential Raspberry Pi RISC-V microcontroller (e.g. Raspberry Pi RP05) and Pico-V board to eventually come out. But unless I missed something, there’s been zero news about Raspberry Pi and RISC-V in recent years, and Arm’s investment may seal the fate of any potential Raspberry Pi RISC-V MCU.

Thanks to Thomas for the tip.

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