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Is this why the US administration sees the Risc-5 architecture as a potential threat? I remember the HN comments here from the last ~10 years when X84_AMD64

Is this why the US administration sees the Risc-5 architecture as a potential threat? I remember the HN comments here from the last ~10 years when X84_AMD64 was the dominant architecture how desperate China was to have it's own domestic X86 compatible CPU and was wiling to spend whatever it takes to get ones but no domestic company could due to the US Intel-AMD monopoly over that architecture, and now finally it can have that thanks to an open-standard architecture that's not monopolized by a single player (ARM now, and Risc5 in the future).

Dalewyn 2y ago
Long story short: Yes. China has a vested interest in attaining parity RISC-V chips to divest American-reliant x86 chips from Intel and AMD and western-reliant ARM chips from ARM and friends. As an aside, if China can then table the turns and flood the market with cutthroat cheap RISC-V chips forcing out x86 and ARM just like they've done with home appliances, solar panels, EVs, and more, they would then command the microprocessor industry of the world and thus everything reliant on it.
- daghamm 2y ago
  They have already achieved this in the microcontroller market. Check out WCH and their parent company Nanjing Qinheng Microelectronics. High performance is much harder, but they seem to have the money and the talent to eventually do it.
  - addicted 2y ago
    You forgot corporate espionage. China is really really good at that.
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      >China is really really good at that. US and others have also engaged in corporate espionage even against their allies. See Snowden's documents. China's only doing what they've learned from their former colonial overlords. Everyone spies on everyone if they have the means and know they can get away with it.
re-thc 2y ago
> Is this why the US administration sees the Risc-5 architecture as a potential threat? > and now finally it can have that thanks to an open architecture that's not monopolized by a single player It's a threat because there's a lot of shady things going on behind the scenes. E.g. with x86 there was Via who fronted for China to make x86 chips. With ARM there was the whole ARM China fiasco and then the same group moving on to RISC-V. It's not so simple.
- cr125rider 2y ago
  Do you have a good reference I should check out about this? This is all new to me.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    There's no single source but plenty of articles and famous youtubers have covered the VIA - Intel shenanigans over the years which you can look up yourself if you search online, but that's pretty much dead and buried now since Intel kept suing and then buying out all of VIA's X86 spin-off teams. Here's a recent video on the topic of newish Chinese X86 clones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQAgOe9i6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQAgOe9i6Y
  - RetroTechie 2y ago
    It's a recurring pattern across industries: 1. Chinese firm enters partnership with a firm from abroad. Like manufacture X companies' product(s) on Chinese soil for its internal market. Of course this involves technology transfer in some form. And licensing deals / royalties, investments or personnel exchange back & forth, whatever. 2. Disagreement happens between the firms involved. 3. Chinese partner / subsidiary pulls out. But -crucially- 4. Continues making those products, or products employing the tech that was transferred. Can't un-learn what was learned, can you? 5. Legal conflict drags on for many years. Possibly without ever getting resolved (intentional, I'd guess). ARM, or the Intel <-> VIA saga are just some well known examples.
    - re-thc 2y ago

Dalewyn 2y ago

Long story short: Yes. China has a vested interest in attaining parity RISC-V chips to divest American-reliant x86 chips from Intel and AMD and western-reliant ARM chips from ARM and friends. As an aside, if China can then table the turns and flood the market with cutthroat cheap RISC-V chips forcing out x86 and ARM just like they've done with home appliances, solar panels, EVs, and more, they would then command the microprocessor industry of the world and thus everything reliant on it.

daghamm 2y ago
They have already achieved this in the microcontroller market. Check out WCH and their parent company Nanjing Qinheng Microelectronics. High performance is much harder, but they seem to have the money and the talent to eventually do it.
- addicted 2y ago
  You forgot corporate espionage. China is really really good at that.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >China is really really good at that. US and others have also engaged in corporate espionage even against their allies. See Snowden's documents. China's only doing what they've learned from their former colonial overlords. Everyone spies on everyone if they have the means and know they can get away with it.

re-thc 2y ago

> Is this why the US administration sees the Risc-5 architecture as a potential threat? > and now finally it can have that thanks to an open architecture that's not monopolized by a single player It's a threat because there's a lot of shady things going on behind the scenes. E.g. with x86 there was Via who fronted for China to make x86 chips. With ARM there was the whole ARM China fiasco and then the same group moving on to RISC-V. It's not so simple.

cr125rider 2y ago
Do you have a good reference I should check out about this? This is all new to me.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  There's no single source but plenty of articles and famous youtubers have covered the VIA - Intel shenanigans over the years which you can look up yourself if you search online, but that's pretty much dead and buried now since Intel kept suing and then buying out all of VIA's X86 spin-off teams. Here's a recent video on the topic of newish Chinese X86 clones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQAgOe9i6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQAgOe9i6Y
- RetroTechie 2y ago
  It's a recurring pattern across industries: 1. Chinese firm enters partnership with a firm from abroad. Like manufacture X companies' product(s) on Chinese soil for its internal market. Of course this involves technology transfer in some form. And licensing deals / royalties, investments or personnel exchange back & forth, whatever. 2. Disagreement happens between the firms involved. 3. Chinese partner / subsidiary pulls out. But -crucially- 4. Continues making those products, or products employing the tech that was transferred. Can't un-learn what was learned, can you? 5. Legal conflict drags on for many years. Possibly without ever getting resolved (intentional, I'd guess). ARM, or the Intel <-> VIA saga are just some well known examples.
  - re-thc 2y ago