cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45218430

Xiangshan, a high-performance processor unveiled by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) at the Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing on Thursday, is the latest effort to push the boundaries with RISC-V architecture.

With the central processing unit (CPU) core achieving a score of 16.5 points/GHz under SPEC CPU2006, an industry-standard benchmark, its performance has reached “internationally advanced levels”, according to a report by state-backed Science and Technology Daily on Friday.

The CPU core, which executes instructions for the processor, is based on the RISC-V architecture.

The move followed the recent unveiling of the latest RISC-V-based chip by Alibaba Group Holding’s research arm Damo Academy, signalling a coordinated national push to develop home-grown computing power to counter US export controls. Advertisement

The XuanTie C950, the latest flagship in Alibaba’s XuanTie RISC-V series, was introduced at the company’s annual ecosystem conference in Shanghai on Tuesday. Designed for high-performance tasks in cloud computing and AI computing, the C950’s CPU core was said to be the most powerful of its kind globally.

RISC-V, the fifth generation of the Reduced Instruction Set Computer, became available for chip developers to configure and customise under the Switzerland-based non-profit RISC-V International in 2015.

Alibaba’s XuanTie C950 was introduced at the company’s annual ecosystem conference in Shanghai on Tuesday. Photo: Handout Alibaba’s XuanTie C950 was introduced at the company’s annual ecosystem conference in Shanghai on Tuesday. Photo: Handout The open-source project is seen as China’s best hope for achieving self-sufficiency in chip design, reducing reliance on Intel’s x86 and Arm’s namesake architecture, which power the Microsoft Windows and Google Android operating systems, respectively.

At the Beijing event, CAS also launched Ruyi, a native operating system tailored specifically for the architecture, aiming to strengthen ecosystem development around RISC-V chips, an aspect seen as a key chokepoint in wider adoption of the architecture.

The Ruyi system was also able to provide native operating system support for RVA23, a standardised baseline profile that guarantees new RISC-V chips support a specific set of advanced features like vector processing, according to CAS.

Industry insiders said the open chip architecture was catching up with x86 and Arm in hardware performance, but still lagged in terms of its software ecosystem.