Turing Pi 2 Raises $1 Million in Single Day

Cluster computer the Turing Pi 2 has just launched on Kickstarter, and with 29 days still to go has breezed past its $64,000 goal with over $1 million pledged at the time of writing. An extra special addition to the Turing Pi 2, as reported by CNX Software, is that it supports a brand-new module, the Turing RK1, which features the Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor and up to 32GB RAM.

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The board is already circulating among tech YouTubers, including friend of the Tom’s Hardware PiCast Jeff Geerling (above). Rapidly becoming something of a heavyweight in the SBC space. The RK3588 sports four Arm Cortex-A72 cores and four A55 cores. It also carries a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of six TOPS, making such a cluster more attractive to the machine learning crowd. The full spec of the RK1 isn’t ready yet, but we expect there to be some flash storage on board, and PCIe 3.0 in some form.

You’re not stuck with the RK1, however. Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4s can be used via an adapter (if you can find them), as the Turing Pi 2 features four SODIMM slots into which you can secure your modules via an adaptor. You can use Nvidia Jetson Nano, TX2 NX, and Xavier NX modules too, or mix and match a combination that suits your needs.

The modules are connected via a Gigabit Ethernet switch that’s built into the mini-ITX board, with enough bandwidth left over for a pair of gigabit RJ-45 ports on the edge of the board. These are complemented by a pair of USB 3 ports (with more available via a header), two mPCIE sockets including one with a SIM card slot for connecting third-party extension boards such as wireless networking or home automation transmitters, two SATA III ports, an HDMI and a MIPI DSI header. There's a 40-pin GPIO header too.

Power comes via a 2-pin ATX header, and consumption is said to be less than 60W when using Nvidia modules. Board management will be via open-source firmware, and the cluster seems perfect for exploring self-hosted home automation applications, photo galleries or media servers, even a Minecraft server.

The Turing Pi 2 is available from $219 for a bare board, with shipping available anywhere in the world. Raspberry Pi CM4 adapters are $12. Remember that crowdfunding a project is not a guarantee of receiving a finished product. Backing a crowdfunded project is akin to an investment, you believe in the project and want it to succeed. You are not purchasing a retail product.