Radxa unveils new Raspberry Pi alternative with focus on AI performance

Radxa is likely a familiar name for makers, as the company offers a variety of single-board computers. With the NIO 5A, the company has now indirectly unveiled a new device in this exact category. According to CNX-Software, this new gadget was on display at MediaTek's booth at Computex 2025. Unsurprisingly, the Radxa NIO 5A is powered by a MediaTek SoC, the Genio 520 to be more specific. This chipset features two Cortex-A78 and six Cortex-A55 cores, along with a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU and an NPU. The SBC has an AI performance of 10 TOPS, which is a pretty high number for a single-board computer. Generally speaking, this performance can be used for applications like image recognition, and for analyzing sensor data.

The board measures 85 x 56 millimeters and is powered via USB Type-C. Optional storage includes UFS 3.1 or eMMC 5.1, and a microSD card slot is available as well. Furthermore, the HDMI port can output a 4K signal. Cameras can be connected via two USB 3.2 Gen 1 and two USB 2.0 ports, but also via MIPI CSI, which supports cameras with up to 16 megapixels. A 3.5mm audio jack is also onboard.

Network connectivity relies on Gigabit Ethernet, with optional support for PoE, which allows the Radxa SBC to run on power provided by the network cable. WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 are also supported, while the 40-pin header should be compatible with the Raspberry Pi's header. The same applies to the PCIe Gen 2 x1 slot, which is implemented as a single connector with densely packed connections. Pricing and availability info are not available yet.