M5Stack AI-8850 LLM Accelerator M.2 Kit

The M5Stack LLM-8850 AI Accelerator Kit adds up to 24 TOPS of AI performance to a Raspberry Pi 5 via PCIe, with active cooling and a compact M.2 design for edge computing projects - with 4GB or 8GB RAM.

The M5Stack LLM-8850 AI Accelerator Kit for Raspberry Pi 5 is a compact edge AI solution designed to bring high-performance inference and video processing to embedded systems.

The kit includes the LLM-8850 Card AI accelerator and a matching HAT adapter board. At its core, the accelerator card is built around the Axera AX8850 SoC and uses an M.2 M-Key 2242 form factor, delivering up to 24 TOPS (INT8) of compute performance. This makes it well suited for demanding workloads such as multimodal large-model inference and video analytics, all within a small footprint.

To maintain performance under sustained load, the card features an active cooling system combining a micro blower fan with a CNC aluminium fin heatsink. Fan speed is intelligently controlled by an onboard EC, adjusting based on a temperature–current curve to keep temperatures stable. This helps prevent thermal throttling, even during long periods of heavy use or when installed in enclosed spaces.

The included LLM-8850 HAT adapter board makes integration with the Raspberry Pi 5 straightforward. It provides a standard 2.54mm 40-pin header interface and a USB Type-C PD input for power delivery. The accelerator connects to the Pi 5 via a PCIe expansion FPC adapter, enabling a high-speed link between the two boards.

Together, the kit provides a practical way to add significant AI acceleration to a Raspberry Pi-based system, making it suitable for compact edge computing projects that require efficient, high-performance processing.

Features

• Ultra-compact form factor: M.2 M-Key 2242 size
• High-performance NPU: 24 TOPS @ INT8, octa-core Cortex-A55 1.7 GHz CPU
• Intelligent cooling / power: onboard blower fan + CNC aluminium integrated heatsink, EC-monitored temperature–current–speed closed loop
• 4GB or 8GB high-bandwidth memory: 64-bit LPDDR4x, 4266 Mbps
• Hardware video engine: 8K @ 30 fps H.264/H.265 encoding, 8K @ 30 fps decoding, supports 16-channel 1080P parallel decoding
• Secure boot & encryption: AES / DES / 3DES / SHA-256 hardware security module
• Native AXCL support: one-click full-stack model deployment for CNN, Transformer, CLIP, Whisper, Llama3.2, Qwen3, InternVL3, etc., with H.264/H.265 simultaneous encode/decode transcoding
• USB Type-C PD power input:
  • USB PD3.0 100W protocol
  • DC 24V overvoltage protection
  • Power capability requirement > 9V@3A (27W)

Specifications

SoC	Axera AX8850
CPU	Octa-core Cortex-A55 1.7 GHz
NPU	24 TOPS @ INT8
Video Encoder	8K @ 30 fps H.264/H.265 encoding, supports scaling / cropping
Video Decoder	8K @ 30 fps H.264/H.265 decoding, supports 16-channel 1080P parallel decoding, scaling / cropping
Memory	4GB or 8GB 64-bit LPDDR4x, 4266 Mbps
Storage	32Mbits QSPI NOR Flash (bootloader only)
Form Factor	M.2 M-Key 2242, PCIe 2.0 x2
Cooling	Micro blower fan + CNC aluminium integrated heatsink, EC intelligent thermal control
Operating Temperature	0 ~ 60 °C
Full-load Temperature at Room Temp	70 °C
Adapter Board PD Power	USB PD3.0 100W protocol (DC 9V / 12V / 20V)
Adapter Board Load Capability	Output to Raspberry Pi 5: DC 5V@4A; Output to M.2 accelerator card: DC 3.3V@6A
LLM-8850 Card Power	7W @ 3.3V
Power Requirement	> 9V@3A (27W)
Product Size	LLM-8850 Card: 42.6 x 24.0 x 9.7mm LLM-8850 PiHat: 65.0 x 58.0 x 12.7mm
Product Weight	31.9g

Resources

• Product Wiki

Package Contents

• 1x LLM-8850 Card (4GB or 8GB)
• 1x LLM-8850 HAT
• 1x 40-pin Header
• 1x Screw and Standoff Accessory Pack

Raspberry Pi not included