New Nvidia Jetson TX1 Developer Kit SE Offers High-Performance AI Computing for $199

When it comes to the upper tier of maker-centric computing boards, the Nvidia Jetson stands out as the platform of choice for makers, students, and hobbyists who want to do compute-intensive projects. Nvidia  is now launching a new special edition of their Jetson TX1 Developer Kit: the $199 Jetson TX1 Developer Kit SE.

This Jetson devkit offers a lot more than other embedded computing solutions or educational single board computers. It comes with a Jetson TX1 System-on-Module that runs a full desktop version of Linux and has a 256-core NVIDIA Maxwell GPU. With its graphical processing power, everyone from adventurous hobbyist to serious professionals can accelerate development for AI inferencing at the edge.

Since launching, we’ve seen these used for everything from emergency-response autonomous R/C car prototypes, to deep-learning humanoids, to trash-removal bots and even cat determent systems — all based on neural network, image detection and classification.

We built our own project with the Jetson TX1 as well, a laser-pointer cat toy that detects your kitty when it comes into the room, turns on a laser pointer, and teases the cat with random movement of the red dot on the floors and walls. It’s a lot of smarts providing a lot of feline fun. Here’s the full how-to, if you want to build your own.

The Jetson TX1 Developer Kit SE is a $300 price drop from the non-SE version, regularly costing $499. It includes everything from the original kit minus the camera module and USB cable.

With only a limited quantity being sold, you should probably jump on this if you’re interested in putting AI into your next project. It is available now for US and Canada customers, and will be rolling out to other regions in September. Customers must sign up online, or already be a member of the Nvidia Developer Program to get the special price. Only one NVIDIA Jetson TX1 devkit per person, per address.

If you get one, please let us know what you make with it — back-to-school, cat-based, or otherwise, this will take your AI project to the next level. We want to see!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
• Jetson TX1 System-on-Module
• GPU 1 TFLOP/s 256-core Maxwell
• CPU 64-bit quad-core ARM A57 CPUs
• Memory 4 GB LPDDR4 | 25.6 GB/s
• Storage 16 GB eMMC
• Networking 10/100/1000Mbit Ethernet
• Display Dual pipeline HDMI/ eDP/DSI
• Video 4K 60 Hz decode 4K 30 Hz encode
• USB USB 3.0 + USB 2.0
• PCIE Gen 2 1×1 + 1×4 (full x4 slot)