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In February, Alibaba announced that it will start shipments of its newest RISC-V processor, a server-grade CPU, to customers this month. Alibaba, which plans to invest more than US$50 billion in AI and cloud computing over the next three years, recently announced a new AI model that it claims outperforms DeepSeek.

RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture based on Reduced Instruction Set Computer design principles. A free, non-proprietary platform for the development of IC processors, it is an ideal way for the Chinese (or anyone else) to develop an alternative to the proprietary semiconductor technologies of America's Arm, Intel, Nvidia and other Western firms that are subject to US government export controls.

The RISC-V concept was conceived at the University of California, Berkeley , in 2010. The RISC-V Foundation was established in 2015 to support and manage the technology, with the Institute of Computing Technologies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as one of its founders.

A China RISC-V Alliance was established in 2018 with the goal of creating a complete open-source computing ecosystem by 2030. Also in 2018, the city of Shanghai introduced financial incentives for RISC-V development and Chinese RISC-V specialist StarFive was founded with the support of SiFive, the technology leader headquartered in Santa Clara.

In 2020, the RISC-V Foundation was incorporated in Switzerland as the RISC-V International Association, moving out of the United States to avoid potential disruption caused by then-president Donald Trump's China trade war policies.

US policymakers and politicians would like to use export controls to limit China's use of the technology, but indications are it is too late for that. China already accounts for about 50% of RISC-V core shipment volumes.

Several Chinese companies are“premier” members of RISC-V International, including Alibaba Cloud, Huawei, ZTE, Tencent and semiconductor products and services supplier Beijing ESWIN. Andes Technology, Google, Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Synopsis and SiFive are also premium members.

The least well-known of the premier member Chinese companies, ESWIN , has R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, seven other Chinese cities, South Korea and the UK; manufacturing plants in Xi'an and Chengdu; and sales offices in Qingdao, Shenzhen, nine other Chinese cities, South Korea, Japan and the US.

Altogether, the RISC-V International Association has 24“premier” members, 166“strategic” members, and 205“community” members in Europe, Asia and the Americas, according to the RISC-V website .

The fourth annual RISC-V Summit China was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, last August, where more than 100 companies, research institutions and open-source technology communities participated. Ranking with similar events in Europe and North America, it attracted some 3,000 domestic and foreign attendees and about half a million viewers online.

These developments are being followed closely by tech companies, consulting firms and government officials in the US. In December 2023, the Jamestown Foundation , a conservative research and analysis consultancy following national security-related trends from Washington, DC, wrote that:

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