Back in April 2014, we launched the Compute Module to provide hardware developers with a way to incorporate Raspberry Pi technology into their own products. Since then, we’ve seen it used to build home media players, industrial control systems, and everything in between.

Earlier this week, NEC announced that they would be adding Compute Module support to their next-generation large-format displays, starting with 40″, 48″, and 55″ models in January 2017, and eventually scaling all the way up to a monstrous 98″ (!!) by the end of the year. These are commercial-grade displays designed for use in brightly lit public spaces such as schools, offices, shops, and railway stations.

NEC have already lined up a range of software partners in retail, airport information systems, education, and corporate to provide presentation and signage software which runs on the Compute Module platform. You’ll be seeing these roll out in a lot of locations that you visit frequently.

Each display has an internal bay which accepts an adapter board loaded with either the existing Compute Module or the upcoming Compute Module 3, which incorporates the BCM2837 application processor and 1GB of LPDDR2 memory found on the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. We’re expecting to do a wider release of Compute Module 3 to everybody around the end of the year.

We’ve been working on this project with NEC for over a year now, and are very excited that it’s finally seeing the light of day. It’s an incredible vote of confidence in the Raspberry Pi Compute Module platform from a blue-chip hardware vendor, and will hopefully be the first of many.

Now, here’s some guy to tell you more about what’s going on behind the screens you walk past every day on your commute.