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ALPHA-One Leverages RISC-V StarPro64 for Compact Local LLM Deployment

May 12, 2025 — by Giorgio Mendoza 380 views

PINE64 has shared early details of the ALPHA-One, a compact generative AI agent powered by the RISC-V-based StarPro64 SBC. Priced at $329.99, the device is aimed at developers and testers, and comes preloaded with a 7 billion parameter LLM running in a Docker container.

The ALPHA-One is built on the StarPro64 SBC, which features the ESWIN EIC7700X SoC. This quad-core SiFive P550 processor runs at up to 1.4GHz and is paired with a 256-core Imagination AXM-8-256 GPU and a 19.95 TOPS INT8-capable NPU.

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StarPro64 SBC
(click image to enlarge)

According to the product page, the 64GB eMMC module included with the ALPHA-One is preloaded with the Deepseek/Qwen 7B model, and support for Meta’s LLaMA LLM is planned in a future update. Performance is currently rated at around 3.5 tokens per second. The board supports up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM, providing the bandwidth needed for memory-intensive inference workloads.

For reference, some of the peripherals found on the StarPro64 include dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, USB 3.0 and 2.0, dual-band Wi-Fi 6 with Bluetooth 5.3, and a PCIe Gen3 x4 expansion interface. Video output supports 4K@60Hz, and the board also features MIPI DSI and CSI ports for display and camera integration.

The device features a fully fanless enclosure with a large passive heatsink design, as seen in the shared image. Heat is dissipated through a built-in heat pipe that makes direct contact with the SoC. Although the case can become warm during operation, the system maintains power efficiency with a consumption of under 30 watts, as described by PINE64.

ALPHA-One
(click image to enlarge)

The unit requires a 12V 3A or 5A power supply with a 5.5mm OD / 2.1mm ID barrel jack, which is not included. ALPHA-One comes with a 30-day limited warranty and a strict no-return/no-refund policy, emphasizing its role as an experimental tool for those interested in edge AI rather than a consumer-ready product.

PINE64 has also published SDKs, documentation, and some tools for the StarPro64 platform, including resources for deploying and fine-tuning LLMs on the hardware.

Further Information

The ALPHA-One is listed at $329.99—about $80 more than the base StarPro64 SBC, which starts at $249.99. However, PINE64 has not yet provided details regarding availability.

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