In this post, our friends from Cactus Compute show how Needle 2, a 14MB function-calling model, turns plain English into local actions on a Raspberry Pi 5, using the CPU alone.

Type “Turn the LED on” and 78 milliseconds later, the LED on our Raspberry Pi 5 comes on. That is Needle 2 running on the CPU alone – without a dedicated AI HAT.



Let’s start with what Needle is not. It is not a chatbot. Instead, the team at Cactus Compute trained it for one task only: reliable, structured on-device actions.

...read more at raspberrypi.com