Your Raspberry Pi 5 just got a big AI upgrade – thanks to this new add-on

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The upgraded AI HAT+ 2 boosts performance to 40 TOPS.
• The board comes with 8GB of onboard RAM.
• The ban could have a significant impact on businesses and jobs.

If you’re into Raspberry Pi computers and AI, then chances are that you’re already using the AI HAT+ that was released back in 2024. This was a game-changer in terms of offloading AI workloads onto the Pi 5. The idea is that this is a low-cost, data-private way to process edge AI workloads without needing to use third-party cloud-based AI services.

Also: The best Raspberry Pi alternatives of 2026: Expert recommended

Well, today sees that board get a significant upgrade with the release of the AI HAT+ 2.

Two versions

The AI HAT+ came in two versions — a standard 13 TOPS (tera-operations per second) version powered by a Hailo-8L AI accelerator chip, and a 26 TOPS version powered by the Hailo-8 AI accelerator. The new AI HAT+ 2 boosts this performance to 40 TOPS thanks to the use of the Hailo-10H chip backed up by 8GB of onboard RAM.

This performance boost allows the AI HAT+ 2 to handle large language models (LLMs), vision-language models (VLMs), and other generative AI workloads locally, independent from the Raspberry Pi 5 board. It can also handle vision-based AI workloads such as object recognition and pose estimation at about the same 26 TOPS performance as that of the Hailo-8-powered AI HAT+.

Those who have already built projects around the AI HAT+ and want to take advantage of the performance boost that the AI HAT+ 2 has to offer, fear not, because according to Naush Patuck, Senior Principal Engineer at Raspberry Pi, “transitioning to the AI HAT+ 2 is mostly seamless and transparent.”

Also: A wireless heart rate monitor powered by Raspberry Pi and Wi-Fi – how it works

And for those needing inspiration or information on how to make use of all this AI power, Hailo’s GitHub repo has everything you need to get started with generative AI. There are also a selection of LLMs available to install at launch, including Llama3.2, DeepSeek-R1-Distill, and Qwen2, with more available after launch.

Availability

This board works with all Raspberry Pi 5 boards (from 1GB all the way to 16GB), connects via the onboard PCI Express interface, and integrates directly with Raspberry Pi’s camera software stack, avoiding additional configuration hassle.

Also: This Raspberry Pi alternative let me build an AirTag-like tracker – here’s the process

The AI HAT+ 2 board is shipped with an optional heatsink, but based on your experience of the previous AI HAT+, I’d recommend fitting this, especially if running demanding tasks or benchmarking, because the processor can get pretty hot under heavy loading.

The board is available immediately for $130, although at the time of writing ZDNET only found stock at PiShop (this outlet also sells a complete AI HAT+ 2 starter kit).