Old McDonald had a Pi, AI, AI, oh. And with that Pi he did machine learning, AI, AI, oooooh…
TAKING STOCK
There hasn’t been much change to Raspberry Pi stock levels in 2022. With a global chip shortage, war in Ukraine and waves of pandemic, it seems that Raspberry Pi stock should be the least of our worries. But life goes on, and we carry on making. In a recent YouTube livestream, Raspberry Pi expert Jeff Geerling talked about Raspberry Pi stock levels. He had information from Eben Upton, co-founder of Raspberry Pi, that indicated 2022 was the year of status quo. Around 400,000 units are made each month, with many going to OEM/industrial customers who depend on the boards to power their products. A number of Pi are ring-fenced for consumer purchases and sent to authorised resellers in dribs and drabs.
In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Upton alluded to a future where Pi were more plentiful. In the interview, Upton refers to “positive signs” in the supply chain, and while it may be some months off, Q2 2023 could be the time to harvest a fresh batch of Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi 4 was released back in June 2019, the 3B+ before it was 2018, and the 3B in 2016, so we are now due for a Raspberry Pi 5. No doubt this is being worked on behind the scenes; creating new silicon takes time and money, after all. With the current issues, we won’t be seeing a new Pi until after the supply chain is healed. What it will look like and what will be powering it are only known to those at Pi Towers.