Raspberry Pi 5 Not Launching Until After 2023

Raspberry Pi Taking a "recovery year" in 2023

As we have previously reported, Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton announced via a recent blog post that 100,000 units would be making their way into the supply chain, and that the in the latter-half of 2023 we can expect stock levels to return to pre-pandemic normality. That said, the supply chain shortage has impacted the normal cadence of Raspberry Pi releases, and according to Upton in an interview with Christopher Barnatt from Explaining Computers it means we sadly won't be seeing a Raspberry Pi 5 in 2023.

In the interview, Explaining Computers host Barnatt asks Upton about the future of the Raspberry Pi and if there are new models on the horizon. Upton then talks about how the past couple of years have been "weird" (pandemic and global chip shortage) and it has disrupted the cadence of Raspberry Pi development and release. Upton states that "the platform [Raspberry Pi 4] has been around longer than any Raspberry Pi platform has been around before, I think.".

At 29 minutes and 30 seconds Upton breaks the bad news, "Don't expect a Pi 5 next year [2023]" Upton then expands and explains that 2023 is a "recovery year". The recovery year is there to help Raspberry Pi and the technology industry recover from the double-punch of a pandemic and a global chip shortage which has caused a slowdown across the world. 

Upton explains "What would really be a disaster would be if we tried to introduce some kind of Raspberry Pi 5 product" Upton provides a scenario akin to that of the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, launched midway through the pandemic. It has been relatively unobtainium since release. 

Upton said he is very concerned about the consequences "if we introduced a Raspberry Pi 5 product and it couldn't ramp properly because of constraints, or if we introduced some Raspberry Pi 5 product and it somehow cannibalized some supply chain element." Upton then explains how cannibalization could impact the recovery of Raspberry Pi 4 and the 3 / 3+ and that Raspberry Pi has to be "ginger" as they move forward with its recovery. 

"The good news is the second half of next year, 2024 onwards, some of those things start to abate. And that's the point where we can start to think about what might be a sensible Raspberry Pi 5 platform," Upton said. 

Upton talks about how in the years since the Raspberry Pi 4 was released, it has seen performance upgrades, largely down to bumping the stock 1.5 GHz CPU speed to 1.8 GHz which was first implemented in the Raspberry Pi 400 and its impressive keyboard heatsink. The Pi 4 has also seen many software improvements and energy optimizations (the Pi 4 was notable for running rather warm in the early days) in its protracted history.

The normal cadence of Raspberry Pi releases is that we see a new "model B" every three to four years. But the global chip shortage has added an additional delay, with the Raspberry Pi 5 now likely seeing a 2024 release date. At five years this would mark the longest gap between Raspberry Pi releases in the almost 11 year history of the product.

We've reached out to Upton for further comment and will update this story with any additional information we gather. 

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