The “Three Musketeers” of AI: The Secret Weapon for Smarter Devices #
Can you imagine that future industrial PCs will not only have a powerful “brain” (CPU) and sharp “eyes” (GPU), but also a “neural acceleration engine” (NPU) dedicated to AI? This isn’t science fiction—it’s the latest breakthrough from the Advantech engineering team on the AIMB-2210 motherboard! For the first time, we have successfully enabled the XDNA™ architecture NPU integrated in AMD’s latest Ryzen™ Embedded 8000 series processor, demonstrating its extraordinary capabilities in edge AI computing.
This experiment is not just a technical test—it stands as the best testimony to our ongoing innovation and industry leadership. Now, let’s take a deep dive into how this “three-in-one” AI super processor enables Advantech platforms to shine!
Why Bring AI to the “Edge”? AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Market Highlights #
With AI applications becoming ubiquitous, enterprises increasingly want AI to process data on-site in real time—on factory floors, in smart retail, or within surveillance cameras in smart cities. In these scenarios, AI is no longer confined to the cloud but moves to the “edge” devices—dramatically shortening response times, enhancing privacy and security, and eliminating worries over network instability!
The AMD Ryzen™ Embedded 8000 series (Hawk Point) is a powerful SoC (System-on-Chip) designed precisely for this. Like a Swiss army knife, it combines:
- Zen 4 CPU Cores: Handling complex logical operations with rock-solid stability.
- RDNA™ 3 GPU: Excelling in image processing and parallel computing, delivering both quality and efficiency.
- XDNA™ NPU: The AI inference expert! Delivers faster and more power-efficient AI model decisions and predictions.
Explosive Application Scenarios! Is Your Industry Ready for the AI Evolution? #
With the “CPU+GPU+NPU” combination of Ryzen™ 8000, edge AI applications are set for an explosive growth era! Imagine these scenarios:
- Smart Factories: Production line machine vision instantly assesses yield rates, and equipment anomaly alerts are more timely.
- Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR/AGV): Smarter path planning, automatic obstacle avoidance, and enhanced safety.
- Smart Retail: AI-powered self-checkout quickly recognizes products and analyzes customer flow behavior.
- Smart Cities: Faster and more accurate traffic monitoring and public safety responses.
All of this can run reliably on Advantech’s industrial-grade AIMB-2210 motherboard, withstanding even the harshest environments!
Advantech Engineers On-Site: Is the NPU Really That Impressive? #
Brand New AMD Ryzen™ AI Software Suite Makes AI Development Easy #
Our engineering team utilized AMD Ryzen™ AI Software, a development suite that allows models trained with mainstream AI frameworks (like PyTorch, TensorFlow) to be rapidly deployed on NPU/GPU. You don’t need to be an AI expert to get started with ease!
In addition, AMD has built a rich AI Model Zoo, providing numerous pre-trained models to further accelerate development!
Computer Vision (CV) Experiment On-Site #
Objective: Verify whether the NPU can simultaneously process multiple vision AI models
Platform: AIMB-2210 + Ryzen™ 8000
Development Tool: Ryzen AI Software 1.2
Step 1: Preparation & Installation #
- Follow the official guide to install the operating system, drivers, and Ryzen AI Software.
- Reference sample link
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Step 2: Multiple Models in Action! #
- Using AMD’s multi-model sample, run five vision AI models simultaneously on the NPU: MobileNet_v2, ResNet50, Retinaface, Segmentation, Yolox.
- GitHub reference link
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- Important: All steps executed in Windows CMD.
Step 3: Impressive Results! #
- Face Detection: Accurately identifies faces in the frame
- Object Detection (Yolox): Quickly recognizes various objects
This proves that AIMB-2210 + Ryzen™ 8000 NPU can stably handle complex real-time vision tasks at the edge!
Bonus: GPU DirectML Also Runs AI #
- Explore the built-in RDNA 3 GPU of Ryzen 8000, using Microsoft DirectML to accelerate models like YOLOv4.
- DirectML YOLOv4 sample link
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NPU Performance Test: Visual Proof! #
Objective: Quantify the speed (throughput & latency) of NPU running AI models
Step 1: Testing Tools #
- Use the AMD Ryzen AI Software’s
performance_benchmark.pyto test ONNX-format CNN models on CPU, iGPU, and NPU.
Step 2: Execution Process #
- Follow the GitHub guide for operation.
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Step 3: Command Examples #
- CPU:
python performance_benchmark.py -m .\models\resnet50\resnet50_fp32.onnx -n 100 -e CPU - iGPU:
python performance_benchmark.py -m .\models\resnet50\resnet50_fp32.onnx -n 100 -e iGPU - NPU:
python performance_benchmark.py -m .\models\resnet50\resnet50_fp32.onnx -n 100 -e VitisAIEP
Actual Results (Mobilenet-v2) #
- The lightweight Mobilenet-v2 (quantized) model performed brilliantly on the NPU, with FPS and latency data shown below.
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Experiment Highlights & Application Value: Advantech Creates Your Competitive Edge #
- Technical Feasibility: AIMB-2210 + Ryzen™ 8000 can stably and efficiently execute NPU-accelerated AI, supporting both CV applications.
- Performance & Efficiency: NPU inference is fast and power-saving, especially suitable for edge devices needing real-time response and long-term operation.
- High Integration: The heterogeneous CPU+GPU+NPU architecture enables a single platform to handle diverse tasks, simplifying design and reducing costs.
How Does This Help You? #
- Wider Applications: AEs and sales partners can confidently recommend AIMB-2210 + Ryzen 8000 to customers, covering smart factories, robotics, retail, city, and other edge AI scenarios.
- Significant Competitiveness Boost: Our solution is stable, reliable, and innovative, helping you lead the market.
- Higher ROI: Highly integrated SoC is expected to lower total cost of ownership (TCO), making every customer investment more worthwhile!
Advantech Continues to Lead the Way in Edge AI Innovation! #
By activating the AMD Ryzen 8000 NPU on the AIMB-2210, Advantech has proven its commitment not just to keeping pace with technology trends, but to boldly overcoming technical barriers. We deeply understand the potential and implementation details of every new technology, ensuring each customer experiences the real value of AI innovation.
The future of edge AI is just beginning! Advantech will continue to invest in R&D, collaborating with partners like AMD to expand both hardware and software ecosystems, accelerate AI development and deployment, and bring intelligence to every device.
Want to learn more? Have any technical or product questions? Feel free to contact us anytime and let’s step into the new era of smart AI together!