The Chinese Academy of Sciences has unveiled a new high-performance processor chip and a new operating system, based on the popular open-source chip design standard RISC-V. The chip has been named Xiangshan open-source high performance RISC-V processor, while the operating system is called Aolai.
These technological achievements represent China’s commitment to building an open-source chip ecosystem with a new blueprint to support its digital economy and promote international cooperation in chip development, experts and officials said. For decades, computer chip designs have been expensive and hard to license. Global chip designers, such as Intel and ARM, have long kept their blueprints secret, meaning consumers had to buy manufactured chips directly or pay more for a customized design.
RISC-V, an instruction set architecture rooted in reduced instruction set computer principles, has been open and free to use since its launch in 2010 and everyone can use it to design chips tailored to their needs. As a result, MIT Technology Review named the chip design as one of the breakthrough technologies of 2023. About 3,100 members worldwide, including companies and academic institutions, are now adopting the new design to build RISC-V chips, according to MIT Technology Review. “In a few years, RISC-V proponents predict, the chips will be everywhere,” the publication said.
Yin Hejun, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said during a session of the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing that processor chips are the foundation of information technology and the digital economy. Over the past four decades, open source software ecosystems have revolutionized the global information technology industry, Yin said. Some notable examples include Bluetooth, Ethernet, wi-fi, and PDF, all of which are based on open standards whose design specifications are publicly available, allowing consumers and product makers to access the same functions across various devices.
Yin said the Chinese Academy of Sciences attaches great importance to building open-source technology ecosystems. In 2018, the Academy launched the China RISC-V Alliance to facilitate the construction of a RISC-V ecosystem. Yu Yingjie, Vice Mayor of Beijing, said RISC-V, x86 and ARM are becoming the three pillars of the global chip ecosystem, creating new opportunities. The city will take advantage of its rich resources in human resources, policy and capital to create a high-quality open-source chip industrial hub that can yield innovation and contribute to the development of the global information technology sector, he said, as reported by the China Daily.
