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America is considering whether to give the enemy access to the most popular open architecture.
In the face of an escalating technological confrontation with the United States, China is actively promoting an open chip design architecture - RISC-V. The goal is to reduce dependence on foreign technologies in this critical area. Now, however, Beijing's ambitious plans face new challenges and obstacles.
First, last month, the US Department of Commerce said that China's use of RISC-V technology poses a serious risk to national security, which the government is going to eliminate in the near future. Five months earlier, a group of congressmen from both parties called on the Biden administration to take measures to prevent Beijing from dominating the application of this advanced standard.
Second, last week, tech giant Google removed support for RISC-V from the core of the Android operating system. According to experts, this step will slow down the promotion of chips based on RISC-V among manufacturers who planned to release devices running Android. Developers can restore compatibility on their own, but this will require additional effort and resources.
However, the global impact of Google's move will be limited, since most companies do not use RISC-V to create chips specifically for Android. However, in China itself, the situation looks very different. There are already at least 300 companies, including all the largest technology players in the country, using the RISC-V architecture in their developments.
Of the 25 members of the non-profit group RISC-V International, whose main goal is to promote this standard, more than half are Chinese companies and organizations. These include giants such as Alibaba Cloud, Huawei, ZTE, and the state-backed Beijing Institute for Chip Open Source Development. Other members include Google, Intel, and Qualcomm.
China's tech titans are actively investing in building their own RISC-V processors. So, Alibaba's research division — DAMO Academy-is expanding the line of XuanTie series chips built on this architecture. It is reported that such processors are already used in promising areas — 5G networks, robotics and financial services.
Another promising Chinese company, Baidu-funded StarFive Technology, is also working on RISC-V architecture CPUs. Moreover, it plans to open a specialized laboratory in Hong Kong.
Despite growing concerns in the United States about China's ambitious plans, experts note that Beijing's contribution to the development of the RISC-V standard is still significant. Zhang Xiaorong, director of the Beijing Institute of Advanced Technologies, in particular, is convinced that companies that are already leading developments to ensure RISC-V compatibility with Android are unlikely to stop closing their projects at this stage.
In the face of an escalating technological confrontation with the United States, China is actively promoting an open chip design architecture - RISC-V. The goal is to reduce dependence on foreign technologies in this critical area. Now, however, Beijing's ambitious plans face new challenges and obstacles.
First, last month, the US Department of Commerce said that China's use of RISC-V technology poses a serious risk to national security, which the government is going to eliminate in the near future. Five months earlier, a group of congressmen from both parties called on the Biden administration to take measures to prevent Beijing from dominating the application of this advanced standard.
Second, last week, tech giant Google removed support for RISC-V from the core of the Android operating system. According to experts, this step will slow down the promotion of chips based on RISC-V among manufacturers who planned to release devices running Android. Developers can restore compatibility on their own, but this will require additional effort and resources.
However, the global impact of Google's move will be limited, since most companies do not use RISC-V to create chips specifically for Android. However, in China itself, the situation looks very different. There are already at least 300 companies, including all the largest technology players in the country, using the RISC-V architecture in their developments.
Of the 25 members of the non-profit group RISC-V International, whose main goal is to promote this standard, more than half are Chinese companies and organizations. These include giants such as Alibaba Cloud, Huawei, ZTE, and the state-backed Beijing Institute for Chip Open Source Development. Other members include Google, Intel, and Qualcomm.
China's tech titans are actively investing in building their own RISC-V processors. So, Alibaba's research division — DAMO Academy-is expanding the line of XuanTie series chips built on this architecture. It is reported that such processors are already used in promising areas — 5G networks, robotics and financial services.
Another promising Chinese company, Baidu-funded StarFive Technology, is also working on RISC-V architecture CPUs. Moreover, it plans to open a specialized laboratory in Hong Kong.
Despite growing concerns in the United States about China's ambitious plans, experts note that Beijing's contribution to the development of the RISC-V standard is still significant. Zhang Xiaorong, director of the Beijing Institute of Advanced Technologies, in particular, is convinced that companies that are already leading developments to ensure RISC-V compatibility with Android are unlikely to stop closing their projects at this stage.
