Granitepi-4-Nano
Project Genesis & Mission
Granitepi-4-Nano emerged from collaborative meetings with @Thomas Mertens, which reinforced a core insight: people learn AI best through hands-on projects and sticking with the fundamentals. This project makes that learning accessible to resource-constrained users by enabling practical AI experimentation on commodity hardware-specifically, the Raspberry Pi 5 with IBM Granite 4.0.
The Problem
Hands-on AI learning is traditionally gatekept behind high hardware costs, internet dependency, cloud subscriptions, and technical complexity. This excludes students, hobbyists, researchers in developing regions, and anyone in bandwidth-limited environments.
Granitepi-4-Nano removes these barriers, proving that learners can engage with enterprise-grade AI without expensive infrastructure.
Making Granite 4.0 Accessible
After extensive testing on Raspberry Pi 5, IBM Granite 4.0 models outperform alternatives (TinyLlama, Phi) under resource constraints (Temperature issues). The project makes Granite 4.0 a practical learning platform through:
- Complete setup guide for commodity hardware (Raspberry Pi 5)
- Beginner-friendly documentation written for learners, not engineers
- Zero-cost access with no subscriptions or account requirements
- Hands-on integration examples (REST API, Python) that enable independent projects
Real-World Performance
- ~11-22 tokens/s
- Cost: ~$80-100 total hardware investment
Learners experience real AI systems with which they can experiment with, not simplified simulations.
Privacy & Independence
Complete local, offline operation enables:
- Experimentation without tracking
- Unrestricted learning with no internet dependency
- Safe testing on personal hardware
- Confidential project work
Impact
Granitepi-4-Nano democratizes hands-on AI learning. Informed by Thomas Mertens' insights on project-based education, it proves sophisticated language models are deployable on commodity hardware. Students, hobbyists, and learners without expensive infrastructure can now access Granite 4.0 capabilities-locally, privately, and through real projects that build genuine understanding.
This is AI education through accessible, hands-on projects.
Acknowledgement: I'd like to recognize the dedication to learning AI over the past year. He went from limited AI knowledge prior to us collaborating and now he is finding his own unique ways to prompt, that impress me at time - all in around a year! I am very glad to have had Tom's insights into AI learning. This was a team project! Thank you Tom!
This is an ongoing proof-of-concept project.
GitHub: GitHub - Jewelzufo/granitepi-4-nano: Run IBM Granite 4.0 locally on Raspberry Pi 5 with Ollama.
#LLM------------------------------
Julian Gonzalez
Generative AI Engineer
CreativeAct Technologies
Lares PR
------------------------------