- Alibabas Damo Academy has launched its first server quality RISC-V processor
- C930 is designed for high performance computing competing with Intel and AMD’s offer
- RISC-VS OPEN SOURCE-DESIGN AVERAGE LICENSE FEADS AND GEOPOLITIC RESTRATIONS
Alibaba has launched its first server quality RISC-V processor, C930, designed for high performance calculation and placed as an alternative to Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC CPUs.
The new chip, developed by Alibaba’s research arm Damo Academy (map for discovery, adventure, momentum and outlook), was announced at a conference in Beijing and is the latest addition to Alibaba’s Xuantie RISC-V processor series, which includes C910 launched in 2019 and C920 was released in 2023.
In response to the ever -tightening US trade restrictions on advanced technology exports, Chinese companies such as Alibaba’s Damo Academy, Huawei and Tencent Ramped up efforts to develop their own chips to reduce the dependence on foreign suppliers. Especially RISC-V wins traction in China because of its open source nature, which allows companies to design and adapt processors without licensing fees or geopolitical risks associated with proprietary architectures such as X86 and Arm. The Chinese Science Academy is set to introduce its own RISC-V-based Xiangshan CPU this year.
An aggressive investment
At the Beijing conference, the Damo Academy also outlined future plans for the Xuantie processor series, which includes the development of new chips for use in AI accelerators, car calculation and high speed connection.
A report from South China Morning Postswhich is owned by Alibaba, says: “The launch of the new chips came days after the tech giant announced an aggressive investment plan of at least $ 380 billion ($ 52 billion) in AI and Sky Infrastructure for the next three years. The company, which is China’s largest sky provider, aims to meet the rising demand for AI models driven by the recent popularity of the high performance models developed by Hangzhou-based start-up deaf. “
The reports add the planned outlay exceed Alibaba’s total cost of AI infrastructure in the last decade and will lead to the construction of more data centers throughout China.
The new C930 server processor is expected to start sending to clients later in March 2025.
