Abstract: TensorFlow Lite (TFLite) is a lightweight, fast and cross-platform open source machine learning framework specifically designed for mobile and IoT. It’s part of TensorFlow and supports multiple platforms such as Android, iOS, embedded Linux, and MCU etc. It greatly reduces the barrier for developers, accelerates the development of on-device machine learning (ODML), and makes ML run everywhere. This article introduces the trend, challenges and typical applications of ODML; the origin and system architecture of TFLite; best practices and tool chains suitable for ML beginners; and the roadmap of TFLite.

Key words: machine learning, on-device machine learning (ODML), TensorFlow, TensorFlow Lite, TFLite, mobile, IoT