Arm has announced that it will make its most powerful edge AI platform, Armv9, available to startups through a flexible access program.
The “flexible access” model is essentially a “try before you buy” model for chip designers. This gives businesses access to a wide range of Arm technologies, tools, and resources upfront, at low cost, or (for qualifying startups) for free. You are free to experiment and iterate on your design by simply paying licensing fees for the technology you use in your final design.
According to Arm, this approach has already been a “catalyst for innovation.” This model has contributed to approximately 400 successful chip designs (or “tape-outs”) over the past five years. You’ve probably heard of companies already using this, including Raspberry Pi, Hailo, and SiMa.ai.
The Armv9 Edge AI platform combines the ultra-efficient Arm Cortex-A320 processor with the Arm Ethos-U85 NPU, the bits that handle the heavy AI processing. The duo requires no cloud connectivity and can run AI models with over 1 billion parameters on the device itself.
This is the technology that powers next-generation edge AI applications such as smart cameras that not only record but also understand what they see, smart home gadgets that learn your habits, and robots that can be controlled using vision, voice, and gestures.
Paul Williamson, who runs Arm’s IoT business, believes the next wave of AI innovation will happen at the “edge: the devices, interfaces, and systems that bring intelligence closer to where the data is created.”
The big advantage here is privacy and security. Processing everything locally allows machines to “perceive and respond like humans, while keeping inference and data processing secure on the device.” We don’t need to send your personal data to our servers to know what you say. The Armv9 platform also includes security features such as Pointer Authentication Code (PAC) and Memory Tagging Extensions (MTE) to keep data on the device safe.
VDC research predicts that by 2028, AI will become the “key technology used across IoT projects.” Arm’s technology is “already at the center of this transformation,” and this move solidifies that position.
For all developers looking to get started with edge AI, the Arm Cortex-A320 will be available through the program in November 2025, followed by the Ethos-U85 AI processor in early 2026.
See also: NVIDIA GPUs power Oracle’s next-generation enterprise AI services
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