Raspberry Pi started life in 2008 as an educational foundation for schools. Co-founder Eben Upton wanted to teach students to build a cheap, credit-card-sized computer they could stuff in a backpack. Nearly two decades later, Raspberry Pi Holdings plc is, almost by accident, a billion-pound business with its devices today integral to thousands of global industrial applications.

The adaptability, stability and low price of Raspberry Pi has made it indispensable beyond education. Electric vehicle charging, Internet of Things (IoT) networks, and industrial retrofitting now run on Raspberry Pi hardware. The business has shipped over 75 million units globally – 10 per cent in 2025 alone – and thanks to a manufacturing partnership in Pencoed, Wales, has created circa 300 UK jobs.

In 2025, Raspberry Pi had a highly successful year driven by an explosion in demand for edge AI hardware. Upton has publicly cautioned against the AI hype, which has also caused the cost of key memory components to skyrocket. But the business still cannily responded by upgrading its Raspberry Pi 5 model with special add-on chips that let customers run smart AI programs directly. Tellingly, when the next-generation Raspberry Pi 6 arrives, it’s expected to not carry a dedicated AI chip at all, as the company continues its bet that add-ons are the smarter way to ride the AI curve.

Made CBE in 2016, Eben Upton is so confident in his original idea that, in mid-February 2026, he bought up £13,000 worth of his own stock, coinciding with a record two-day rally in the stock. Through the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the business continues to deliver on its day one mission: putting high-performance hardware in the hands of the next generation of engineers.