Geniatech Targets Edge Generative AI, DeepSeek-7B with Its APC880, APC880 Mini Edge AI PCs

Geniatech is looking to power local machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML and AI) systems, with a particular focus on large language models (LLMs) up to seven billion parameters in size, with its APC880 and APC880 Mini systems, powered by NXP's i.MX 8M Plus and a Kinara Ara-2 accelerator.

"The i.MX 8M Plus AI Edge Computing PC is based on the high-performance [NXP] i.MX 8M Plus SoC [System-on-Chip], […] the first NXP integrated transmission nerve [sic] processing unit (NPU) product, running [at] rates of up to 2.3 TOPS [Tera-Operations Per Second]," Geniatech writes of its latest launch. "Focus on machine learning and vision, multimedia, and industrial automation with high reliability. Also paired with the Kinara Ara-2 40 TOPS computing chip, [for] rapid prototyping of edge AI application scenarios. It can be widely used in machine learning and artificial intelligence, NPU vision system, advanced multimedia, and industrial automation."

The APC880 and its Mini sibling, brought to our attention by CNX Software, both feature the NXP i.MX 8M Plus system-on-chip, with four Arm Cortex-A53 cores running at up to 1.8GHz, a Cortex-M7 core running at 800MHz for real-time workloads, a Vivante GC7000UL graphics processor, and an in-house neural processing unit (NPU) delivering a claimed 2.3 tera-operations per second (TOPS) of compute at minimum precision. That alone isn't enough to run modern generative AI workloads with any decent performance, so Geniatech has added a Kinara Ara-2 coprocessor — which delivers a beefier 40 TOPS at minimum precision, enough to run the seven-billion-parameter distilled version of popular LLM DeepSeek entirely locally at reasonable speeds.

There's a choice of 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB of LPDDR4 memory for the main system plus 16GB of dedicated RAM for the Ara-2 chip, plus 8GB to 128GB of eMMC storage and a microSD card slot for expansion. Both models include LVDS, HDMI, and MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) outputs, two gigabit Ethernet ports, built-in dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 plus optional cellular connectivity, at least one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 Type-A ports with another two USB 2.0 ports via a header, and a rack-mountable housing that doubles as a heatsink.

Where the two differ is in the details. The full-size model includes one two-lane and one four-lane MIPI Camera Serial Interface (CSI) to the two four lane connectors of the Mini, the APC880 has analog audio connectivity missing entirely on the Mini plus additional USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, and the APC880 includes a four-pin RS232, four-pin RS485, and two four-pin CAN bus headers to the two combined RS232/RS485 and single CAN bus header of the Mini. Interestingly, the Kinara Ara-2 accelerator is an optional extra on the APC880 — and replaceable with a Hailo accelerator, for those already working within that ecosystem — but comes as standard with the APC880 Mini.

More information is available on the APC880 and APC880 Mini product pages; at the time of writing, Geniatech had not publicly disclosed pricing for either model.