$199+ M5Stack AI Pyramid Computing Box Linux AI mini PC is based on Axera AX8850 SoC

M5Stack has just launched the “AI Pyramid Computer Box” AI mini PC powered by an Axera AX8850 octa-core Cortex-A55 SoC with a 24 TOPS NPU and featuring an unusual design since it’s housed in a pyramidal enclosure.

The mini PC features 4GB or 8GB of RAM, 32GB eMMC flash, a microSD card slot, two HDMI 2.0 ports (see specs for details), a 4-mic array, a built-in speaker, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, four USB 3.2 ports, and two USB-C ports for data and power. It serves as a desktop-grade Edge AI computing platform for systems such as AI vision gateways, smart security systems, and local smart photo albums.

M5Stack AI Pyramid Computing Box specifications:

• SoC – Axera AX8850
  • CPU – Octa-core Cortex‑A55 processor at 1.7 GHz
  • NPU – 24 TOPS @ INT8
  • VPU
    • Video Encoder – 8K @ 30 fps H.264/H.265 encoding, supports scaling / cropping
    • Video Decoder – 8K @ 60 fps H.264/H.265 decoding, supports 16 channels 1080p parallel decoding, supports scaling / cropping
• System Memory
  • AI Pyramid Computing Box – 4GB 64‑bit LPDDR4x @ 4266 Mbps; 2GB for Linux, 2GB for NPU
  • AI Pyramid Computing Box Pro –  8GB 64‑bit LPDDR4x @ 4266 Mbps; 4GB for Linux, 4GB for NPU
• Storage
  • 32GB eMMC 5.1 flash
  • MicroSD card slot
• Microcontroller sub-system based on an STM32 coprocessor for
  • OLED status display (SSD1306 with 128×32 resolution)
  • User control buttons (power on/off + OLED page navigation)
  • 48x RGB LED lighting
  • Power monitoring
• Video Output/Input
  • AI Pyramid Computing Box – 2x HDMI outputs up to 4Kp60
  • AI Pyramid Computing Box Pro – 1x HDMI output up to 4Kp60, 1x HDMI input up to 4Kp60
• Audio Subsystem
  • ES8311 audio codec
  • ES7210 4-microphone array input
  • 4Ω 2W 2040 enclosed speaker and AW8317A amplifier
• Networking – 2x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports
• USB
  • 4x USB 3.0 Type-A ports, including 1x internal onboard port
  • 2x USB Type-C ports (1x USB host port + 1x USB PD 3.0 100W power delivery (PD) port)
• Expansion – 2x 4-pin expansion connectors (UART/I2C)
• Security – Secure Boot, AES/DES/3DES/SHA-256 hardware security module
• Misc – Turbo cooling fan with EC intelligent thermal control
• Power Supply – 9V DC at 3A+ (27W) via USB-C port
• Dimensions – 144.5 x 105.0 x 62.0mm
• Weight – About 195 grams

While the mini PC comes with one or two HDMI video outputs, it looks mostly designed for headless applications, and users are told to log in through SSH using root as the user and 123456 as the password. We’re also told the Linux image is based on Ubuntu with a desktop GUI accessible through the HDMI port, but we’re not shown clear screenshots.

The documentation lists several tutorials for Home Assistant, Frigate NVR security monitoring (upstream merge pending), Immich smart photo album, CosyVoice voice cloning, sherpa-onnx Speech-to-text and text-to-speech platform, and a 16-channel video detection demo. M5Stack already sells the LLM-8850 M.2 card and AI-88502 LLM Accelerator M.2 Kit for the Raspberry Pi 5, so the AI Pyramid mini PC is more of a turnkey solution ready to use out of the box. It still features native AXCL support for “One-click deployment” for CNN, Transformer, CLIP, Whisper, Llama 3.2, Qwen 3, InternVL3, and other models.

The “AI Pyramid Computing Box 4GB Version (AX8850)” is currently available for purchase for $199 on AliExpress and the M5Stack store. The Pro (8BG) variant is sold for $249 on AliExpress, and while it is also listed on the M5Stack store, it is currently shown as “out of stock” there.

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