Jetson Mate: A Compact Carrier Board for Jetson Nano/NX System-on-Modules

Containers have become the unit of deployment not just for data center and cloud workloads but also for edge applications. Along with containers, Kubernetes has become the foundation of the infrastructure. Distributions such as K3s are fueling the adoption of Kubernetes at the edge.

I have seen many challenges when working with large retailers and system integrators rolling out Kubernetes-based edge infrastructure. One of them is the ability to mix and match ARM64 and AMD64 devices to run AI workloads. Customers often run a heterogeneous (AMD64/ARM64) multinode Kubernetes cluster for scalability and high availability. The AMD64 devices are typically based on Intel NUC, while the ARM64 devices are powered by the Jetson Nano and Jetson Xavier NX System-on-Modules (SOMs) from NVIDIA.

SeeedStudio, a leader in IoT kits for makers and developers, has launched a carrier board that can house four Jetson Nano or Jetson Xavier NX SOMs. Branded as Jetson Mate, the kit is ideal for prototyping and deploying AI workloads at the edge. It can be a standalone device to run Kubernetes infrastructure or join an existing cluster providing AI acceleration to deep learning models.