Ultra-compact mini PC with 12-core ARM CPU and 160-TOPS discrete NPU gets pricing update

A few months ago, we reported on the launch of the Tiiny AI Pocket Lab mini PC with extremely powerful ARM-based internals housed in a pocket-sized chassis. Tiiny AI has now revealed the pricing details for the product, which is expected to enter crowdfunding soon.

At around 14.2 x 8 x 2.5 cm or 5.6 x 3.15 x 1 inches, the Pocket Lab mini PC tips the scales at just around 300 grams, making it impressively compact considering the specs on offer.

Pocket-sized mini PC can locally run 120B LLMs

According to Tiiny AI, the Pocket Lab can power LLMs with up to 120 billion parameters locally, which appears quite far-fetched considering the hardware on offer. The exact hardware details are as follows:

• 12-core ARM CPU, 80 GB LPDDR5X memory
• Discrete NPU with up to 160 TOPS (INT8) of compute
• 1 TB SSD
• 30-watt TDP

Even with a rather aggressive 4-bit quantization, running a 120-billion parameter model might not be an easy task. Tiiny AI claims an output rate of 21.14 tokens/s in the GPT-OSS 120B model, which is neat, but interested folks should definitely wait for third-party reviews.

Crowdfunding campaigns understandably come with a lot of risks, and the same applies to Tiiny AI's Pocket Lab. 

As for pricing, the Pocket Lab mini PC will be available at a cool $1,399 during its crowdfunding stage, which makes sense considering the hardware on offer. Early backers, who are willing to chip in $10 to reserve their unit, will get a $100 discount.

All told, we would like to remind our readers yet again, that crowdfunding campaigns are associated with unforeseen delays, especially when considering that Tiiny AI does not have any prior track record to speak in its favor.

Other folks, who require a normal-sized mini PC with good GPU performance, will likely be better served by AMD Strix Halo-powered systems, such as the GMKtec Evo-X2, currently available for just under $1,930 on Amazon.