London, Feb 19, 2026, 08:09 GMT
- Raspberry Pi shares surged over two days, fueled by traders piling into the stock on talk about its affordable boards being tied to AI.
- CEO Eben Upton stepped in to buy shares, according to a regulatory filing, putting the brakes on a multi-month slide.
- Some investors and analysts highlighted “local AI” — software that runs directly on inexpensive devices instead of relying on rented cloud servers.
Raspberry Pi shares rocketed this week, pushing the microcomputer company’s market cap near £1 billion as online traders jumped in, excited by the OpenClaw AI agent. The Financial Times called the rally “retail-driven.” Investors, they noted, are chasing the notion that “personal AI” tools could run directly on local hardware—not just in the cloud. (Financial Times)
Why does it matter? The surge highlights just how fast AI-driven trading can ripple through lesser-known tech stocks, even if the initial spark comes from hobbyists and coders. It’s happening as firms hunt for ways to deploy AI on local hardware, hoping to trim cloud expenses and better control their data.
Raspberry Pi’s bread and butter is affordable single-board computers—compact units packed onto one circuit board—popular for classroom use and hobbyist builds. Now, the latest pitch casts those same boards as “edge” devices, handling data locally instead of routing it off to distant data centres.
Chief executive Eben Upton snapped up about £13,224 worth of Raspberry Pi shares at around 282 pence each on Monday, according to a regulatory filing. By Tuesday, the stock had jumped as much as 42%. At 1454 GMT, shares were still up roughly 27%, ranking Raspberry Pi among the FTSE 250’s biggest movers, Reuters reported. The company, for its part, said there’s “nothing from the company side beyond what’s already in the public domain.” (Reuters)
The stock surged 36% to finish at 415 pence, according to Sharecast, as traders on X floated a “fun trade idea” and suggested that buyers were snapping up boards to run OpenClaw. “Buying shares signals support in the business,” said Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell. (Sharecast)
OpenClaw, described by Investors’ Chronicle as an open-source AI “agent,” can operate locally right on users’ machines. But Peel Hunt’s Damindu Jayaweera sees something bigger happening. “Inference is moving from centralised cloud servers to cheap, distributed edge devices,” the analyst said. That’s the in-the-field stage, when a trained AI model spits out results. (Investors’ Chronicle)
Raspberry Pi shipped 7.6 million units in 2025, according to The Times, but flagged volatility in memory component prices as a risk to both performance and profitability. The paper referenced Counterpoint, which pegged the jump in component costs at “80 to 90 per cent” earlier this year, driven by stronger AI-related demand. (The Times)
OpenAI just brought on Peter Steinberger, the mind behind OpenClaw, with CEO Sam Altman saying he’s set to “drive the next generation of personal agents,” Tom’s Hardware reports. Steinberger, for his part, says he’s aiming to make agents so user-friendly “even [his] mum can use” them. (Tom’s Hardware)
Some online posts have drawn comparisons between Raspberry Pi’s compact boards and Apple’s higher-priced computers—suggesting that stacking up these inexpensive devices can take on lightweight AI models. That argument has nudged Raspberry Pi shares into the broader AI hardware debate, despite its main business focusing on education, hobbyists, and embedded projects.
Still, the rally’s mostly riding on social-media hype rather than fresh trading news or contract wins. Without steady orders from those OpenClaw-style tools, or if component prices spike once more, shares might lose those hard-won gains.
