Hailo Debuts Two Additions to Hailo-8 AI Accelerator Portfolio
AI at the edge is now in reach for more designers, thanks to the newly-announced Hailo accelerator chips.
As more devices become smarter, edge AI processors must process vast amounts of generated data. To meet this demand, yesterday Hailo announced that it has expanded its Hailo-8 platform to tackle new AI challenges at the edge.
The Hailo-8L AI accelerator enables entry-level AI designs for edge devices, allowing designers to shift the computational burden away from centralized servers. Image used courtesy of Hailo
This announcement comes only months after the release of the Hailo-15 family of vision SoCs and represents a move toward not only cost-efficient AI solutions for traditional computing but also new AI capabilities in edge devices limited in size and power consumption.
This article covers the technical specifications of Hailo's new chips to give designers context on how they may benefit new edge AI designs.
Two New AI Acceleration Options
The two new entrants in the Hailo-8 family, the Hailo-8L and Hailo-8 Century, both offer AI acceleration for different target applications. The Hailo-8 Century adds PCIe support to the Hailo-8 line, providing designers with a new contender in power- and cost-efficient PCIe-based AI accelerators.
Available in eight different versions encompassing both small form factor and wide-host compatibility, the Hailo-8 Century gives designers more choices when choosing a PCIe accelerator. For less-demanding applications, the 0802 card supports up to 52 TOPS, while the 0808S supports up to 208 TOPS for more demanding applications. All models support a TDP of less than 65 W and start at $249 (at the time of writing), making them a cost-effective solution for AI acceleration.
The Hailo-8 Century PCIe solutions offer designers a turnkey and scalable solution. Image used courtesy of Hailo
The Hailo-8L, on the other hand, offers an entry-level solution for AI acceleration. Supporting up to 13 TOPS, the Hailo-8L is designed to support low-quantity or low-complexity AI models for edge devices to enable new levels of edge video processing and remove strain from central processing servers. The Hailo-8L is available in chip-only and module form factors to improve the time-to-market and simplify hardware integration.
Hailo-8L and Hailo-8 Century Bring Edge AI to More Places
The new chips from Hailo are expected to enable several new applications and help designers deploy sensor or camera networks more efficiently. In particular, Hailo expects its new chips to trigger advancements in autonomous security, retail, and smart cities, all of which would benefit from increased AI processing at the edge for highly-scaled deployments.
Scalable edge AI enables applications such as smart home intelligent cameras, smart city occupancy monitoring, and traffic monitoring. Image used courtesy of Hailo
The Hailo reference platform Edge AI Box highlights this ability, offering real-time computer vision for a variety of municipal and commercial applications. When used in conjunction with Hailo’s Intelligent Cameras, the Hailo-8L and Hailo-8 Century provide two processing layers at the edge.
Hailo expects this updated family to benefit the automotive industry, as it outlines in its Hailo ADAS ECU reference. In addition to video streams, the Hailo-8L may also be used to unify sensor and video data to perform better sensor integration and improve the autonomous driving experience.
AI at Any Level
Although the Hailo-8L and Hailo-8 Century are not complete AI solutions, the new applications enabled by these chips indicate a broader trend toward edge-compute architectures. This trend extends beyond AI-heavy applications to general applications where edge computing provides increased versatility and scalability.
