Google built an AI translator that runs entirely offline on a Raspberry Pi

Google has shrunk one of artificial intelligence's most computationally demanding tasks—real-time language translation—down to run on a $35 Raspberry Pi with no internet connection, a technical feat that could democratize access to translation tools across the developing world and undercut the case for cloud-dependent AI services. The breakthrough, which Google is open-sourcing, suggests that the AI industry's obsession with ever-larger models trained on ever-more data may be obscuring a parallel path toward efficient, privacy-preserving systems that work in environments where connectivity and computing power are scarce. It also represents a direct challenge to the current business model of AI companies that profit from centralizing processing power in their own data centers.

The Next Web·Aug 6