Raspberry Pi engineers dropped candid details last week. No flagship single-board computer upgrade arrives before 2028. The reason sits in plain sight: a stubborn global DRAM shortage that has already driven multiple price hikes on existing models.
Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi CEO, shared the timeline during a Reddit AMA hosted on r/engineering. He pointed to the company’s historical cadence of major releases every four to four and a half years. That math puts the successor to the 2023 Raspberry Pi 5 no earlier than early 2028. The Pi 5, he noted, will stay the flagship for years yet.
Short sentences. Direct facts. The message landed clearly across tech sites that picked up the thread. OMG! Ubuntu reported the delay and the absence of dedicated AI hardware. Liliputing highlighted how RAM prices have climbed sharply, forcing cost adjustments on several boards in recent months.
Expectations for the next board had run high. Many hoped for an M.2 slot, extra ports or specialized silicon for AI. Upton pushed back. The Pi 6 will deliver “more” rather than different. Faster CPU. Faster I/O. Greater DRAM bandwidth. Same form factor. He called the shift quantitative changes, not qualitative ones.
CPU Focus Over Dedicated AI Accelerators
AI hype runs hot. Yet Raspberry Pi steers clear of fixed-function NPUs on its main boards. Upton explained the stance in the AMA. “We’re big believers in the CPU as the venue for much edge AI compute. Over time the CPUs become faster, and the algorithms become cheaper, so investing area in ‘fungible’ rather than ‘fixed-function’ compute has always been a good bet.”
He added that the best path to spread AI access lies in fast, affordable CPUs. The company already sells Hailo-based AI HAT add-ons for the Pi 5. That modular route lets users attach accelerators when needed. Future revisions of those add-ons may handle broader algorithms. But the core board stays general purpose.
Recent coverage echoes this view. Articles published in the past week, including from ItsFoss, reinforce that the Pi 5 retains enough headroom. No rush to field a successor while memory costs remain elevated.
And the memory pressure shows no quick relief. Substrate constraints hit even older chips. AI chip production soaks up silicon wafers across process nodes. That reality explains the ongoing shortage of the Pi Zero 2 W. Upton said Raspberry Pi has lined up a new vendor to ease capacity. The shortfall should prove temporary.
A Pi Zero 3 sits even farther off. The low $15 price point demands compromises that newer, faster memory cannot meet right now. Stacked RAM dies that save space on the current Zero may not pair cleanly with speed upgrades. Single-sided PCB designs add cost when abandoned. Old LPDDR2 stockpiles still let the Zero 2 W hit its target when stock appears. The Pi 3 B, released over a decade ago, continues to move nearly one million units a year. Legacy products retain surprising pull.
But the real story may lie off the main stage. Microcontroller shipments overtook single-board computer sales in 2025. James Adams, Raspberry Pi CTO of hardware engineering, described the RP2350 development as tougher than expected on power and security fronts. A later silicon stepping corrected a current leakage issue. The fix delivered the payoff.
Pico boards stick with micro USB for cost and space reasons. USB-C will arrive someday. Not yet. These small devices now command the larger slice of volume. The gap looks likely to widen as SBC prices tick upward.
Software holds the line. Gordon Hollingworth, CTO of software engineering, pledged that 95 percent of engineering time would flow to libraries, drivers, kernels and operating systems. That focus sets Raspberry Pi apart from many embedded competitors. Users accept higher prices because the platform just works. Documentation stays current. Community support runs deep.
Jeff Geerling captured the full AMA in a detailed post. His May 22, 2026 summary ties every thread together. From the Pi 6 wait to microcontroller momentum, the picture shows a company playing a measured hand. Read the original post here.
Recent X discussions reflect the same tone. Engineers note that waiting for Pi 6 makes little sense when Pi 5 paired with AI HATs already delivers capable performance today. Others see the delay as validation for current hardware investments in industrial or self-hosted projects.
The DRAM squeeze will pass. Prices should ease. When they do, Raspberry Pi will ship the next board. Until then the lineup stays put. Faster silicon in the future. Stronger software now. And a microcontroller business that has quietly taken the lead.
Industry watchers will track memory markets closely. Any sustained drop in LPDDR costs could nudge the timeline. For now the signal reads clear. Patience. The next chapter waits.
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