How can I use 96Boards.ai for deep learning?

General
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#1

HI guys :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile: I know my question is really naive but I will really appreciate any help.
I am not an electronics engineer and I never even used raspberry pi or any SPC before :sweat_smile: . I am a developer and I’m really interested in developing deep learning apps on any of 96boards.ai that has NPU in them.
I am planning to get one of those boards but I don’t know what is next.
I use python programming language and I use pytorch 1.0 for neural networks.

I want to know the step for a software developer (who never used a SBC before) to use one of the 96boards.ai boards(like Hikey970) to develop deep learning apps on them? :blush:

#2

Hi there

There are a number of 96Boards products which can support deep learning development. Specifically the products featured on 96Boards.ai.

There are a number of ways you can approach this.

  • If you want to start from the application or algorithm end without caring too much whether the actual computation is going to be accelerated by dedicated neural processing core of the processor, you can choose any one of the boards to start programming using popular framework (TF, Caffe etc.) or refer to the previous blog. In another word, without specific changes, this will be accelerating neural network computation via CPU cores.

  • If you want to specifically use other silicon technologies such as FPGA, Ultra96 gives you a perfect platform to do so; or DSP, which we will have one coming soon.

  • GPU acceleration is always an option which I could recommend you to search for how to do so with Arm Mali GPU (as opposed to NVIDIA GPU that is) using HiKey960 or Rock960 - there are some very good materials from Arm developer network.

  • If you are looking to work on dedicated NPU then you can start with Sophon Edge from Bitmain (when the board is available for mass market) or HiKey970 today but I think to use the NPU for the later, a separate developer agreement is needed with the SoC vendor.

HTHs
Yang

1 Like
#3

Hi :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Thank you much for the reply. I really phrased my question badly. I meant to say that I’m an Android developer and I want to build Android app that use deep learning inference. So I wanted to get Kirin 970 development board to test my app on it. I found out that there is an sdk called HiAi for Android developers. Is everything I said correct? I just need to learn how to use HiAi and test the app on the development board?

#4

Sorry for the late response. If you are looking for Android version of HiSilicon HiAi stack the best is to contact HiSilicon directly.

Thanks
Yang