Part 3/9:
The Coral NPU builds on earlier initiatives dating back to 2016, when Google started exploring domain-specific accelerators with the Edge TPU ASIC. Initially integrated into various hardware forms to facilitate small convolutional neural networks capable of human-level vision and hearing, these products proved valuable. Yet, feedback from users highlighted a persistent pain point: the fragmentation of AI hardware tools made it difficult to develop, maintain, and scale models across heterogeneous platforms.