this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Can anyone knowledgeable tell us if this is feasible, practical, or a good idea?
Yes, yes and yes, but it'll take a while. It's a six year project overall.
Feasible, yes. Practical, hard to say. Good idea, yes.
RISC-V is open-source architecture based in Switzerland (although it started in University of California).
One thing going for it is China is spending billions a year towards RISC-V adoption so they do not get sanctioned by the US. You need money and engineers working on it towards these type of open source to compete with existing players.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to answer, but I know China's also going big on RISC-V.
The great thing about RISC-V if you care about sovereignty in an age where CPUs run the world is that it's an open standard. Contrast this with x86 which is owned in some part by US-based Intel and some part by US-based AMD as well as ARM which is owned by Japanese-owned, UK-based Arm Holdings. If you want to use x86, you're shelling out license money to Intel and AMD, and if you want to use ARM, you're shelling out license money to Arm Holdings. You never truly "own" what you're producing.
This is the way
With tariffs and sanctions, it has become clear that open standards which can’t be controlled by governments are what is needed.
With what’s been happening over the past few years, there will be a lot of interested in this. Recently, I’ve seen lots of news about it, but that could just be the algorithm.
Considering that you can buy some Raspberry Pi micro computers (these are ARM architecture computers) for less than €100 that are performance competitive with a lot of existing hardware; this idea would make a ton of sense for Europe to implement. I think Europe could probably start designing and manufacturing chips locally within 2 to 5 years on the low end 5 to 10 years on the high end.
It helps significantly that the EU already has a lot of the necessary expertise at every level.
ARM is proprietary tech owned by Softbank, whose boss Son Masayoshi was last seen cosying up to Trump with the "Stargate" AI consortium.
I love the raspberry pi, but it's far from being competitive to something like an apple m4, a Qualcomm snapdragon or an am5 chip from AMD.
For its intended purpose it doesn't need to, but it's way slower and less power efficient.
ARM and RISC are not equal. The fastest current RISC CPU is an absolute potato. Then you've got ARM-based chips way faster than a Pi. Then there's silicone like the M4. It's a big uphill for RISC, which is why this, and the investments from the Chinese, are good but longer-term plays.
The question should be then what ARM CPU compares to current RISC-V best CPU and see the gap in years.