Alibaba, Tencent enlisted to help sanction-weary China build RISC-V chips
(2022/12/01)
- Reference: 1669854614
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/12/01/alibaba_tencent_china_riscv/
- Source link:
China is reportedly leaning on domestic tech giants Alibaba and Tencent to design RISC-V chips as part of the country's efforts to insulate itself from the effects of the United States' growing silicon sanctions.
This is according to a [1]Wednesday report by The Financial Times, which said China has "enlisted" the two companies. That word has quite the insinuation, given the country's "military-civil fusion" doctrine, where private firms must share their technologies, and any [2]software vulnerabilities , with China's military.
The report said Alibaba and Tencent are part of a new consortium of companies and research institutes set up by the Chinese government that aims to create new intellection property for chips based on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA). This means China is looking to cook up core designs and other silicon building blocks that will serve as the basis for future chips.
[3]
China views RISC-V as a safer alternative to the proprietary Arm ISA over fears that the latter will be subject to future US sanctions. After all, Arm, is British but has a big American presence, and its owner, SoftBank, hopes to list Arm on a [4]US stock exchange [5]next year .
[6]
[7]
The FT also said the consortium, called the Beijing Open Source Chip Research Institute, has already developed a high-performance RISC-V chip named Xiangshan. The newspaper said the chip is meant to rival Arm technology, but it didn't specify which core design in Arm's portfolio.
[8]China may prove Arm wrong about RISC-V's role in the datacenter
[9]Chinese city of Shenzhen offers free money to boost chip industry
[10]Alibaba Cloud plans for a fifth of its servers to use homebrew Arm CPUs by 2025
[11]Ubuntu continues expanding RISC-V support – now, the $17 Sipeed LicheeRV
Alibaba and Tencent have already launched their own Arm-based chips, but there is apparently trepidation at both companies about Arm's future in China.
The newspaper reported that Alibaba and China's ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, already had plans underway to develop RISC-V chips for AI and datacenter applications. This goes beyond what we previously knew about Alibaba's RISC-V plans, which were mostly limited to [12]edge and IoT appliances .
One senior engineer at T-head, Alibaba's chip division, told the newspaper that the company's goal is to replace its Arm chips "in our most advanced products." The FT also quoted a Tencent engineer, who called Arm "too risky now."
[13]
While one Chinese official described the consortium's RISC-V efforts as being on the "right track," the official added that the ISA's [14]fragmentation issues have slowed down efforts to replace Arm designs.
China's creation of the Beijing Open Source Chip Research Institute is the country's latest step in embracing RISC-V as a way to escape [15]sanctions led by the US . China has been [16]heavily involved in RISC-V's development over the past few years through RISC-V International, the ISA's governing body that [17]relocated its headquarters from the US to Switzerland in 2020 over geopolitical concerns. ®
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[1] https://www.ft.com/content/1d017204-96e8-4d0a-a737-83cf091d41da?shareType=nongift
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/07/china_stockpiles_vulnerabilities_microsoft_asserts/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y4g072Oi4ULOgwxZS8sCewAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/24/arm_nasdaq/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/21/arm_ipo_delayed/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y4g072Oi4ULOgwxZS8sCewAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y4g072Oi4ULOgwxZS8sCewAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/china_riscvv_arm_datacenter/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/12/chinese_city_of_shenzhen_chip_funds/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/04/alibaba_cloud_20_percent_arm/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/28/ubuntu_riscv_sbc/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/25/alibaba_riscv_developer_platform/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y4g072Oi4ULOgwxZS8sCewAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/riscv_fragmentation/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/economic_cold_war_looms_as/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/09/china_homegrown_chips/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/26/riscv_foundation_switzerland/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
This is according to a [1]Wednesday report by The Financial Times, which said China has "enlisted" the two companies. That word has quite the insinuation, given the country's "military-civil fusion" doctrine, where private firms must share their technologies, and any [2]software vulnerabilities , with China's military.
The report said Alibaba and Tencent are part of a new consortium of companies and research institutes set up by the Chinese government that aims to create new intellection property for chips based on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA). This means China is looking to cook up core designs and other silicon building blocks that will serve as the basis for future chips.
[3]
China views RISC-V as a safer alternative to the proprietary Arm ISA over fears that the latter will be subject to future US sanctions. After all, Arm, is British but has a big American presence, and its owner, SoftBank, hopes to list Arm on a [4]US stock exchange [5]next year .
[6]
[7]
The FT also said the consortium, called the Beijing Open Source Chip Research Institute, has already developed a high-performance RISC-V chip named Xiangshan. The newspaper said the chip is meant to rival Arm technology, but it didn't specify which core design in Arm's portfolio.
[8]China may prove Arm wrong about RISC-V's role in the datacenter
[9]Chinese city of Shenzhen offers free money to boost chip industry
[10]Alibaba Cloud plans for a fifth of its servers to use homebrew Arm CPUs by 2025
[11]Ubuntu continues expanding RISC-V support – now, the $17 Sipeed LicheeRV
Alibaba and Tencent have already launched their own Arm-based chips, but there is apparently trepidation at both companies about Arm's future in China.
The newspaper reported that Alibaba and China's ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, already had plans underway to develop RISC-V chips for AI and datacenter applications. This goes beyond what we previously knew about Alibaba's RISC-V plans, which were mostly limited to [12]edge and IoT appliances .
One senior engineer at T-head, Alibaba's chip division, told the newspaper that the company's goal is to replace its Arm chips "in our most advanced products." The FT also quoted a Tencent engineer, who called Arm "too risky now."
[13]
While one Chinese official described the consortium's RISC-V efforts as being on the "right track," the official added that the ISA's [14]fragmentation issues have slowed down efforts to replace Arm designs.
China's creation of the Beijing Open Source Chip Research Institute is the country's latest step in embracing RISC-V as a way to escape [15]sanctions led by the US . China has been [16]heavily involved in RISC-V's development over the past few years through RISC-V International, the ISA's governing body that [17]relocated its headquarters from the US to Switzerland in 2020 over geopolitical concerns. ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/1d017204-96e8-4d0a-a737-83cf091d41da?shareType=nongift
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/07/china_stockpiles_vulnerabilities_microsoft_asserts/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y4g072Oi4ULOgwxZS8sCewAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/24/arm_nasdaq/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/21/arm_ipo_delayed/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y4g072Oi4ULOgwxZS8sCewAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y4g072Oi4ULOgwxZS8sCewAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/05/china_riscvv_arm_datacenter/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/12/chinese_city_of_shenzhen_chip_funds/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/04/alibaba_cloud_20_percent_arm/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/28/ubuntu_riscv_sbc/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/25/alibaba_riscv_developer_platform/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y4g072Oi4ULOgwxZS8sCewAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/riscv_fragmentation/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/economic_cold_war_looms_as/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/09/china_homegrown_chips/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/26/riscv_foundation_switzerland/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Embarrassing
that one in the corner
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_(company)
> Arm is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England.[7] ... Since 2016, it has been owned by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group.
Good enough for me.
All together now: Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free
RISC-V fragmentation
that one in the corner
So, if these two succeed in ousting even a noticeable chunk of ARM devices from made-in-China products isn't that going to make them the Number 1 in terms of installed RISC-V base, putting them in prime position to drive the adoption of processor extensions and hence reduce the fragmentation? As in, everyone elses extension choices become bit players as far as application developers are concerned.
So rather than being concerned about the fragmentation problem and waffling over it, if they just plough on as fast and hard as possible, they simply get rid of the problem and can push towards whatever is needed to supplant their remaining ARM devices.
Which gives us all a better RISC-V landscape for running our applications over multiple products and gives Arm some healthy competition.
Embarrassing
"After all, Arm, is British..."
No, it's Japanese.
FYI, America is no longer British nor is Canada.
Don't live in the past.