Enabling large models to run smoothly locally without internet access has become a new competition field among tech giants. The Google developer team recently announced that it will collaborate with partners such as Synaptics to officially launch the new Coral AI development board (CoralBoard) for global developers in the summer of 2026. The biggest highlight of this hardware is its built-in high-performance NPU chip, which can provide up to 1TOPS of computing power, allowing AI hardware developers to completely free themselves from reliance on cloud computing power and network connections.

Running Large Models in an Offline Environment

Thanks to the local computing power of up to 1TOPS, this development board can smoothly run Google's open-source Gemma3-270M lightweight model directly on the edge. This means developers can achieve multi-modal functions such as text conversation, real-time voice translation, and even music generation offline without connecting to the internet. It also supports a headless configuration (without connecting a display), allowing developers to fully program and control it directly from the host via the command line.

Compact Configuration Offers Creative Space

In terms of hardware specifications, the Coral development board is equipped with 2GB of memory and comes with rich accessories by default, including a sensor HAT expansion board and a CSI camera module. Although the memory is relatively compact and there is no traditional Ethernet interface to control costs and size, its built-in WiFi and Bluetooth chips are sufficient to meet daily wireless connection needs. Developers can even use a 3D printed case to encapsulate it with a MIPI display, and modify it with a lithium battery to easily create a personalized portable smart pocket device.