The latest USB-stick from Intel has deep learning hardware inside. The pen-sized Neural Compute Stick 2 (NCS2) is said to make working with AI affordable.

It provides support for the Caffe and TensorFlow DNN software libraries. Besides data scientists and academics, NCS2 is said to be perfect for developers and engineers as it enables them to integrate computer-vision and AI capabilities into their IoT applications.

Like its predecessor, NCS 2 is based on the Intel Movidius Vision Processing Unit (VPU). However, it deploys the latest version: the Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU which features a dedicated hardware accelerator for DNN inference.

According to the company, the combination of NCS 2 and the OpenVINO toolkit from Intel enables a fast development-to-deployment cycle: from prototyping trained DNNs on the compute stick to the easy porting of DNNs to an Intel Movidius VPU-based embedded device or system with minimal code changes required, if any.

The Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 is now available from RS Components in the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions.