AAEON sent me three Intel-based UP AI development kits for review, namely the credit card-sized, Intel N150-based UP TWL, the Intel N150-based UP Squared Pro TWL with M.2 expansion slots and a Hailo-8L module, and the more powerful UP Xtreme ARL equipped with a 14-core Intel Core Ultra 5 225H processor.

They offer entry-level, mid-range, and high-end x86-based alternatives to the AAEON NV8600-Nano AI developer kit I reviewed last August, equipped with an NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB. All three models ship with Ubuntu Pro 24.04 and support the UP AI Toolkit and Network Optix’ Nx Meta IP video management platform. I’ll review all three models independently, but in this first part, I’ll go through the hardware and quickly try one of the boards.

Unboxing

Those are development kits that ship with not only the board, but also the same USB VGA camera provided with the NV8600-Nano kit, power supplies, and the UP Squared Pro TWL adds an Hailo-8L M.2 AI accelerator and a small, yet thick heatsink.

I won’t get into the detailed specifications for each here, since I already did that in the article links in the introduction. Let’s do an unboxing for each board/kit.

UP TWL – An entry-level AI dev kit

The UP TWL AI Dev Kit ships with the Intel N150 board with 8GB of RAM and 64GB of flash, four standoffs, a safety manual, a 12V/5A power adapter with a standard DC power barrel, and a USB VGA camera.

On the bottom side of the board, we’ll mainly find a 40-pin GPIO header, a 10-pin wafer with USB 2.0 and UART interfaces, a 4-pin front wafer, a 64GB Kingston eMMC flash, and an RTC battery.

The top side has the Intel N150 Twin Lake CPU and RAM chips covered by a fansink for cooling. As a side note, if you prefer a fanless model, the UP TWLS is what you are looking for, but I don’t think it’s offered as part of the development kit.

The UP TWL SBC comes with a Gigabit Ethernet port, an HDMI port, and three USB 3.0 ports.

They have multiple SKUs for the UP TWL SBC, but the AI Dev Kit ships with the model featuring 8GB RAM, 64GB eMMC flash, and an Intel Processor N150 CPU.

While it’s promoted as an AI development kit, you’ll notice there’s no dedicated AI accelerator or an M.2 socket to add one. That means AI workloads would run on the CPU and GPU in the Intel Processor N150, although you could always add a USB 3.0 AI accelerator if needed, but it’s not provided as part of the kit.

UP Squared Pro TWL – A mid-range Intel N150 AI development kit with Hailo-8L

The UP Squared Pro TWL also comes with a VGA USB camera and adds an Hailo-8L module. It also ships with four standoffs and two nuts, a safety manual, and a slightly beefier 12/6A power adapter with a lockable DC jack.

The bottom side of the board features a 40-pin GPIO header, a range of wafers for expansion, a MIPI CSI connector, an RTC battery, a SATA port, and an M.2 3052 B-key socket with a SIM card slot for cellular connectivity.

The top side also comes with an active cooler, but adds M.2 sockets for Key-M 2280 and Key-E 2230 modules to add AI accelerators, storage, and/or wireless connectivity.

The UP Squared Pro TWL also offers additional interfaces with two Gigabit Ethernet ports, DP and HDMI video outputs, two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, and a USB 3.2 Type-C port. We’ll also find a lockable DC connector and a power button on that side.

The UP Squared Pro TWL board featured in the development kit also comes with an Intel Processor N150, 8GB RAM, and a 64GB eMMC flash.

This kit supports up to 214 TOPS when using a Metis AI accelerator module, but it’s not provided with the version of the kit I received, and the Hailo-8L module delivers 13 TOPS instead.

UP Xtreme ARL – A high-end AI Dev Kit with an Intel Core i5 Arrow Lake CPU

The UP Xtreme ARL AI Dev Kit is the high-end version of AAEON’s UP AI ecosystem. It ships with a USB VGA camera, a 19V/6.32A (120W) power supply with the lockable DC jack, four standoffs and nuts, a safety manual, and a note that reads “A License is a must for unit other than Evaluation unit for device to be preinstalled with Ubuntu OS and equipped with guarantee from Canonical”. That’s probably because Ubuntu Pro 24.04 requires a license to get full support.

The bottom side of the board features a 40-pin GPIO header, a 3.5mm audio jack next to it, a few wafers, a MIPI CSI connector, an RTC battery, and four M.2 sockets: a M.2 2230 E-Key socket, 2x M.2 2280 M-Key sockets (PCIe Gen 4 [x4]), and an M.2 3052 B-Key socket with a Nano SIM slot. One of the M.2 Key-M sockets is fitted with a 256GB Kingston SSD and hides the M.2 2230 E-Key underneath.

The top of the board features an active cooler with a heatsink and a fan, like the other two models.

The UP Xtreme ARL SBC also comes with one Gigabit Ethernet port, one 2.5GbE port, two HDMI ports, a DisplayPort video output, two USB 3.2 ports, a lockable DC jack, and a power button.

The UP Xtreme ARL AI Dev Kit ships with an SBC with an Intel Core Ultra 5 225H and 16GB RAM. Storage is not specified on the package, but as we’ve seen above, it is fitted with a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD.

The kit supports up to 83 TOPS delivered by the Intel Core Ultra 5 225H SoC’s CPU, GPU, and Intel AI Boost accelerator, but you could also extend it with third-party AI accelerators like the aforementioned Metis module.

Hardware preparation and first boot to Ubuntu Pro 24.04

There’s not much to do to prepare the hardware. It’s mostly a matter of installing the standoffs. In some cases, you may need to remove screws to replace them with standoffs, but that’s straightforward. I also installed the Hailo-8L module on the UP Squared Pro TWL SBC.

I forgot to add the small heatsink on the Hailo-8L module when I took the photos above, but I did that later. I decided to boot one of the boards: the UP Xtreme ARL. I connected a touchscreen display (Reflective LCD) through HDMI and USB, an RF dongle for a wireless keyboard and mouse combo, and the power adapter. The power cord is not part of the kits, but it’s a standard “PC PSU” power cord, and you probably find one around your house or office.

The system booted just fine, and I could log in as the “devkit” user with the password “devkit”.

That will be all for today. In the next parts of the review, I’ll test each board with Ubuntu Pro 24.04, checking features and running benchmarks as usual, but I’ll mainly focus on the AI aspect. I’ll need to study a bit more to find out which AI workloads to test. Maybe I’ll run Nx Meta like I did for the AAEON NV8600-Nano AI developer kit, or do something completely different. The documentation for the kits on GitHub is probably a good place to start.

I’d like to thank AAEON for sending the three UP AI development kits for review. The entry-level UP TWL AI Dev Kit goes for $279, the mid-range UP Squared Pro TWL starts at $469, and the high-end UP Xtreme ARL at $899. These are the prices for the kit reviewed here, but you can also add a few accessories or select a more powerful M.2 AI accelerator. You will find all three on the UP shop, and get a few more details on the products page.

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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