Maix4-HAT is a compact AI inference module developed by Sipeed for edge-side deployment of large models. According to Sipeed, it is powered by AXera’s AX650 vision chip, integrating an NPU capable of up to 72 TOPS at INT4 or 18 TOPS at INT8 precision. The module is designed to handle vision, speech, and language tasks in compact edge environments.

Sipeed highlights that the module features an 8-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor running at 1.7 GHz, 8 GB of LPDDR4X memory, and a compact 56 × 65 mm footprint, targeting embedded applications that require efficient performance in limited space.

Maix4-HAT Peripherals
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The company notes that the Maix4-HAT supports two modes of operation: as a PCIe-based HAT accelerator for Raspberry Pi 5 or as a standalone LLM development board. It integrates with the Raspberry Pi through its PCIe interface and works with Sipeed’s axcl library, enabling developers to deploy quantized models such as DeepSeek-R1-Distill, Qwen3, and InternVL2.5.

Maix4-HAT vs Hailo8 Performance Comparison 
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Sipeed’s benchmarks indicate that the Maix4-HAT outperforms comparable accelerators such as the Hailo8-HAT in several tasks. For example, it reportedly achieves 5073 FPS on MobileNetV2 and 5961 FPS on SqueezeNet1.1, and delivers strong results on YOLOv5, YOLOv6, and ResNet models. Compared to Hailo8 26T and 13T, Sipeed claims the Maix4-HAT achieves up to 300% relative performance depending on the model.

Maix4-HAT Benchmarks
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The Maix4-HAT supports various AI models, including YOLO-World and DepthAnythingV2 for vision, Whisper and MeloTTS for speech, and InternVL3 for multimodal tasks. Large language models like Qwen2.5, DeepSeek, and MiniCPM are also listed among supported models, as shown in the company’s model hub.

Sipeed Maix4-HAT
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The board includes a range of hardware interfaces such as USB 3.0, USB 2.0 OTG, mini HDMI, a MicroSD card slot, onboard microphone, and an I2C connector. It also features headers for PCIe-to-RPi5 connection, SPI LCD, boot selection, cooling fan, and speaker. Status LEDs and a reset button are included for development and debugging.

Sipeed has provided a link to documentation through their official Wiki, but the link appears to be offline at the time of publication.

Further Information

The early bird pricing is listed by Sipeed at HKD 1,174.21 (approximately $149 USD) on AliExpress.