Jetway SMC-ARK1 Module Puts 6 TOPS RK3588 on SMARC 2.1

Jetway SMC-ARK1: RK3588 Compute in a Standards-Compliant Module

Jetway announced the SMC-ARK1 on July 27, 2026 — a SMARC 2.1 compliant system-on-module built around the Rockchip RK3588. If you have been following the RK3588 ecosystem, the silicon here is familiar. What is not familiar, and what makes this worth the column inches, is the packaging: an 82 x 50 mm standards-compliant module rather than yet another fixed-layout single board computer.

• SoC: Rockchip RK3588 octa-core — 4x Cortex-A76 at 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 at 1.8 GHz
• NPU: 6 TOPS for edge AI inference; Mali-G610 MP4 GPU
• Memory/storage: 8GB or 16GB LPDDR4x, 64GB or 128GB eMMC across three SKUs
• Form factor: SMARC 2.1, 82 x 50 mm, with dual GbE, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, HDMI input, PCIe, MIPI CSI/DSI

Full Specifications

| Component | Specification |

|---|---|

| CPU | RK3588, 4x A76 @ 2.4 GHz + 4x A55 @ 1.8 GHz |

| GPU | Mali-G610 MP4 |

| NPU | 6 TOPS |

| RAM | 8GB or 16GB LPDDR4x |

| Storage | 64GB or 128GB eMMC |

| Networking | Dual Gigabit Ethernet; Ampak Wi-Fi 5 + BT 5.0 |

| Video in | HDMI input via I-PEX FPC connector |

| Expansion | PCIe lanes, multiple USB, MIPI camera and display |

| OS support | Android 12, Debian 11 (Linux 5.10), Ubuntu 22.04, HarmonyOS |

| Dimensions | 82 x 50 mm (SMARC 2.1) |

Why Does the SMARC Form Factor Matter?

Here is the practical difference. When you design a product around a single board computer, the SBC's connector placement, mounting holes, and I/O layout become permanent features of your enclosure. When the SoC generation turns over — and with Rockchip it turns over regularly — you redesign the enclosure, requalify the thermals, and re-run the compliance testing.

A SMARC module moves all of that onto a carrier board you control. The module handles CPU, RAM, storage, and the wireless radio. Your carrier handles connector placement and whatever industrial I/O the application needs. When a faster module arrives in the same 82 x 50 mm footprint with the same edge connector, it drops in. That is why SMARC dominates industrial embedded design and why an RK3588 module is more interesting than the fourth RK3588 dev board of the quarter.

This is the same argument we made for the Rockchip module in Forlinx RK3572 System-on-Module, and the SMC-ARK1 sits a clear tier above it on raw compute.

The HDMI Input Is the Detail Worth Noticing

HDMI *input* on an FPC connector is not a general-purpose feature — it is a strong signal about the target application. It means the module is expected to ingest video from an external source and process it locally: digital signage playback verification, medical imaging capture, broadcast monitoring, or machine-vision setups where the camera is already an HDMI device.

Pair that with the 6 TOPS NPU and the intent becomes clear. This is a module for taking a video stream in, running inference on it at the edge, and acting on the result without a round trip to a server. The dual Gigabit Ethernet supports the usual industrial pattern of one port to the plant network and one to the device network.

How Much Compute Is 6 TOPS in Practice?

Six TOPS is a mid-tier edge AI budget in 2026. It is comfortable for real-time object detection and classification on one or two 1080p streams, pose estimation, OCR pipelines, and small vision transformers. It is not a local LLM host — for that you want the class of hardware in our best mini PC for local LLMs guide. The RK3588's NPU sits where most industrial vision work actually lives, which is the point.

Availability and What Is Still Unknown

Jetway lists three SKUs — SMC-ARK1-358886A1, SMC-ARK1-358888A1, and SMC-ARK1-358898A1 — covering the memory and storage combinations. Pricing and availability have not been officially disclosed, which is standard for industrial modules where volume quoting happens through distribution rather than a product page.

OS support is broad: Android 12, Debian 11 on Linux 5.10, Ubuntu 22.04, and HarmonyOS. The 5.10 kernel is the mature, well-supported branch for RK3588 vendor BSPs — less exciting than mainline, considerably more predictable for a product that has to ship. For more single-board and module news, see our mini computers coverage.

Sources: CNX Software — July 27, 2026; Jetway — July 2026.