Don’t Expect a Raspberry Pi 5 in 2023, Says CEO
Eben Upton, the CEO of Raspberry Pi Ltd, says that he hopes 2023 will signal a recovery from the supply chain shortages of the past several years. But if your hope is to purchase a Raspberry Pi 5 in 2023, there’s some bad news on that front. Upton says the firm’s updated single-board computer won’t be available until at least 2024.
This news comes by way of a new interview Upton gave with the ExplainingComputers YouTube channel. In it, Upton talks about the pressure Raspberry Pi has felt during the pandemic as chips have become increasingly hard to acquire. The most advanced Raspberry Pi 4 has been difficult to buy for most of the pandemic, and even when you find one in stock, you’ll pay significantly over the $40 retail price — usually well over $100 for the base models. Even the company’s bargain-basement Raspberry Pi Zero systems are selling for several times their $10-15 MSRP.
According to Upton, it’s not big companies or scalpers buying up all the Raspberry Pi 4 units. Instead, the company sees small companies that have built hardware products around the Pi struggling to get the few dozen units they need to fuel their operations. That leaves little for general consumers, to whom Upton wants to sell a Raspberry Pi without waiting lists or pre-orders. “We want people to wake up in the morning, want a Raspberry Pi, then get one at 9 a.m. the next morning,” Upton told ExplainingComputers.
If that’s going to happen any time soon, a Raspberry Pi 5 release simply isn’t in the cards for 2023. Upton sees next year as an opportunity to recover from the effects of the supply chain shortages. Launching a new Raspberry Pi, which would take away resources from existing models, might just make matters worse. It’s not simply a matter of getting chips, either. Packaging, substrates, and other materials can also be a bottleneck, and launching a new product that cannot meet demand is a bad way to follow up on two years of stock shortages.
The 30-minute interview isn’t all bad news about the Raspberry Pi 5. It’s worth a listen if you care about enterprise applications, the possible impact of RISC-V, and how supply chains work.
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