Latest news with #XuanTie
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive-China to publish policy to boost RISC-V chip use nationwide
By Che Pan and Brenda Goh BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China plans to issue guidance to encourage the use of open-source RISC-V chips nationwide for the first time, two sources briefed on the matter said, as Beijing accelerates efforts to curb the country's dependence on Western-owned technology. The policy guidance on boosting the use of RISC-V chips could be released as soon as this month, although the final date could change, the sources said. It is being drafted jointly by eight government bodies, including the Cyberspace Administration of China, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the China National Intellectual Property Administration, they added. The sources declined to be named as the policy discussions were still under way. The four ministries did not respond to requests for comment. RISC-V is a open-source technology that is used to design a range of less-sophisticated chips, from those in smartphones to CPUs for artificial intelligence servers. It competes globally with proprietary and more commonly used chip architecture technology including x86, dominated by U.S. firms Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and Arm, developed by SoftBank Group-owned Arm Holdings. In China, state entities and research institutes have eagerly embraced RISC-V in recent years, seeing it as geopolitically neutral. Chinese chip designers are attracted by its lower costs, but the government has yet to mention it in policy. Its widening use in the country has been greeted warily in the United States, as friction between Washington and Beijing grow - especially over technology. In 2023, Reuters reported that some U.S. lawmakers were putting pressure on the Biden administration to restrict American companies from working on the technology over concerns that Beijing was exploiting its open-source nature to advance its own semiconductor industry. China's largest for-profit RISC-V intellectual property providers include Alibaba's XuanTie and startup Nuclei System Technology, which sell commercial RISC-V processors to chip designers. Industry executives at a event focused on RISC-V that was organised by XuanTie last week said the popularity of DeepSeek could also boost adoption of RISC-V, as the Chinese AI startup's models run efficiently on less-powerful chips. Smaller companies that want to use AI and DeepSeek could turn to chips designed with RISC-V's architecture, said Sun Haitao, a manager at China Mobile System Integration, an ICT equipment provider during the event. "Even if a RISC-V solution priced at 10 million yuan might only reach about 30% of the level of NVIDIA or Huawei, buying three sets means the overall cost might still be lower," he said. "I think this is a breakthrough point." Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive-China to publish policy to boost RISC-V chip use nationwide
By Che Pan and Brenda Goh BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China plans to issue guidance to encourage the use of open-source RISC-V chips nationwide for the first time, two sources briefed on the matter said, as Beijing accelerates efforts to curb the country's dependence on Western-owned technology. The policy guidance on boosting the use of RISC-V chips could be released as soon as this month, although the final date could change, the sources said. It is being drafted jointly by eight government bodies, including the Cyberspace Administration of China, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the China National Intellectual Property Administration, they added. The sources declined to be named as the policy discussions were still under way. The four ministries did not respond to requests for comment. RISC-V is a open-source technology that is used to design a range of less-sophisticated chips, from those in smartphones to CPUs for artificial intelligence servers. It competes globally with proprietary and more commonly used chip architecture technology including x86, dominated by U.S. firms Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and Arm, developed by SoftBank Group-owned Arm Holdings. In China, state entities and research institutes have eagerly embraced RISC-V in recent years, seeing it as geopolitically neutral. Chinese chip designers are attracted by its lower costs, but the government has yet to mention it in policy. Its widening use in the country has been greeted warily in the United States, as friction between Washington and Beijing grow - especially over technology. In 2023, Reuters reported that some U.S. lawmakers were putting pressure on the Biden administration to restrict American companies from working on the technology over concerns that Beijing was exploiting its open-source nature to advance its own semiconductor industry. China's largest for-profit RISC-V intellectual property providers include Alibaba's XuanTie and startup Nuclei System Technology, which sell commercial RISC-V processors to chip designers. Industry executives at a event focused on RISC-V that was organised by XuanTie last week said the popularity of DeepSeek could also boost adoption of RISC-V, as the Chinese AI startup's models run efficiently on less-powerful chips. Smaller companies that want to use AI and DeepSeek could turn to chips designed with RISC-V's architecture, said Sun Haitao, a manager at China Mobile System Integration, an ICT equipment provider during the event. "Even if a RISC-V solution priced at 10 million yuan might only reach about 30% of the level of NVIDIA or Huawei, buying three sets means the overall cost might still be lower," he said. "I think this is a breakthrough point."
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Alibaba's research arm launches new RISC-V processor for high-performance computing
Damo Academy, Alibaba Group Holding's research arm, has launched its first server-grade central processing unit (CPU), marking a significant step in the tech giant's efforts to boost its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and counter US chip restrictions. The new chip, called C930, is the latest addition to Alibaba's XuanTie RISC-V processor series. Designed for server-level, high-performance computing, the C930 will begin shipping to clients in March, Damo announced at a conference in Beijing on Friday. The latest product, which is based on the open-source RISC-V architecture, highlights Alibaba's efforts in recent years to contribute to China's chip self-sufficiency drive. The Hangzhou-based company has been building an ecosystem around RISC-V amid heightened US export controls on advanced chips. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. A signboard for Alibaba research arm Damo Academy pictured at an exhibition. Photo: Weibo alt=A signboard for Alibaba research arm Damo Academy pictured at an exhibition. Photo: Weibo> The name RISC-V refers to the fifth generation of the Reduced Instruction Set Computer, a design philosophy for simplified architectures for CPUs. As an open-source project, it is free for anyone to use and modify, unlike competing standards such as Intel's x86, a complex instruction set that dominates personal computers, and Arm's eponymous proprietary RISC-inspired architecture, which dominates the smartphone market. Damo has previously launched several XuanTie processors based on RISC-V, including the C910 in 2019 and the C920 last year. At the Friday event, the academy emphasised its role in advancing RISC-V adoption in various high-end fields, noting that the XuanTie team has supported the implementation of more than 30 per cent of RISC-V high-performance processors. Damo also announced a development plan for new chips under the XuanTie series, including the C908X, R908A, and XL200. These chips are intended for scenarios including AI acceleration, automotive applications and high-speed interconnection, respectively. The launch of the new chips came days after the tech giant announced an aggressive investment plan of at least 380 billion yuan (US$52 billion) in AI and cloud infrastructure over the next three years. The company, which is China's largest cloud provider, aims to meet surging demand for AI models fuelled by the recent popularity of the high-performance, low-cost models developed by Hangzhou-based start-up DeepSeek. The planned outlay, which exceeds Alibaba's total spending on AI infrastructure over the past decade, is expected to see the construction of more data centres and increased deployment of AI chips. Other Chinese chipmakers have also been developing high-performance RISC-V CPUs. Last month, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a top government research organisation, announced that it would deliver its RISC-V-based XiangShan CPU this year. The team said earlier this month that it had adapted XiangShan to support DeepSeek-R1, the popular reasoning model released in late January. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
South China Morning Post
28-02-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Alibaba's research arm launches new RISC-V processor for high-performance computing
Damo Academy, Alibaba Group Holding 's research arm, has launched its first server-grade central processing unit (CPU), marking a significant step in the tech giant's efforts to boost its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and counter US chip restrictions. Advertisement The new chip, called C930, is the latest addition to Alibaba's XuanTie RISC-V processor series. Designed for server-level, high-performance computing, the C930 will begin shipping to clients in March, Damo announced at a conference in Beijing on Friday. The latest product, which is based on the open-source RISC-V architecture, highlights Alibaba's efforts in recent years to contribute to China's chip self-sufficiency drive. The Hangzhou-based company has been building an ecosystem around RISC-V amid heightened US export controls on advanced chips. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. A signboard for Alibaba research arm Damo Academy pictured at an exhibition. Photo: Weibo The name RISC-V refers to the fifth generation of the Reduced Instruction Set Computer, a design philosophy for simplified architectures for CPUs. As an open-source project, it is free for anyone to use and modify, unlike competing standards such as Intel's x86, a complex instruction set that dominates personal computers, and Arm's eponymous proprietary RISC-inspired architecture, which dominates the smartphone market. Damo has previously launched several XuanTie processors based on RISC-V, including the C910 in 2019 and the C920 last year. At the Friday event, the academy emphasised its role in advancing RISC-V adoption in various high-end fields, noting that the XuanTie team has supported the implementation of more than 30 per cent of RISC-V high-performance processors. Damo also announced a development plan for new chips under the XuanTie series, including the C908X, R908A, and XL200. These chips are intended for scenarios including AI acceleration, automotive applications and high-speed interconnection, respectively. Advertisement
