Alibaba claims it will launch a server-grade RISC-V processor this year

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Alibaba continues to expand its RISC-V portfolio.

T-Head
(Image credit: T-Head)

Alibaba's research division, the Damo Academy, recently announced expansion of its RISC-V efforts, which includes the Xuantie C907 matrix compute core and the Xuantie C930 datacenter-oriented processor, according to Sohu. The server-grade CPU is expected to be launched this year, reports The Register.

One of the ways for Chinese companies to sidestep U.S. Export curbs regarding high-performance computing and artificial intelligence technologies is by developing their own processors for AI and HPC based on their own cores (based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture, or ISA). Alibaba's T-Head chip division was one of the first companies to realize the potential of the RISC-V ISA a few years ago — so it has quite a lot of experience with the technology by now. 

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"As the demand for new computing power surges, the development of RISC-V is undergoing a metamorphosis and is about to enter a period of application explosion," said Zhang Jianfeng, president of the Damo Academy. "The Damo Academy will continue to increase its R&D investment and ecosystem co-building in RISC-V, promoting collaborative innovation and development of the industry upstream and downstream." 

Since native RISC-V technology is crucial for Chinese companies to avoid U.S. Export curbs, it's developing very fast in China. As a result, hardware and software companies have been collaborating to create a competitive ecosystem around this ISA, the report from Sohu notes.

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Findecanor
    No details about the XuanTie C930 core are public yet, except for some wild claims:
    * Supposed SPECint 2006 performance of 15/GHz.
    * Supposed compliance with the "RVA24" profile, on which work has hardly even started yet.
    Reply
  • JTWrenn
    Am I the only who read that as Alabama and was terrified for a minute?

    Will be interesting to see what they come out with and if any software supports it. For now it has a whole lot to catch up to.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    JTWrenn said:
    Am I the only who read that as Alabama and was terrified for a minute?

    Will be interesting to see what they come out with and if any software supports it. For now it has a whole lot to catch up to.
    Software support on the server side is fairly robust already. Most of the major languages support RISC-V as a target. Java or JVM based languages like Ruby or Java Script (NodeJs for example) not an issue, just install and run (C# support is currently in beta). C/C++ and Rust for example already have RISC-V target support on Linux, the software in many cases just needs to be recompiled. Popular server operating environments such as Kubernetes and Docker already support RISC-V.

    RISC-V is behind in software support, but in truth for the server environment it's not that far behind.
    Reply
  • das_stig
    Always had this crazy thought in my mind for an open source NAS/router.
    Risk-V, open socket, choose your number of cores and speed
    2-4 ram slots for large memory capacity.
    4-8 bays, maybe NVMe and 2.5" SATA models
    2 or more slots for off the shelf wifi cards for AP's
    4+ LAN, minimum of 2.5G, maybe a couple of 10G, managed switch
    TrueNas/Unraid + open source router/linux + other software in isolated containers/jails/vm's

    and if made in bulk, reasonable prices for all the components, yes I can dream:unsure:
    Reply
  • ahmad1900
    JamesJones44 said:
    Software support on the server side is fairly robust already. Most of the major languages support RISC-V as a target. Java or JVM based languages like Ruby or Java Script (NodeJs for example) not an issue, just install and run (C# support is currently in beta). C/C++ and Rust for example already have RISC-V target support on Linux, the software in many cases just needs to be recompiled. Popular server operating environments such as Kubernetes and Docker already support RISC-V.

    RISC-V is behind in software support, but in truth for the server environment it's not that far behind.
    Question, is risc v running well natively? Android OS only supports RISC V (but doesn't make much hardware yet) Docker only supports X86-86, Arm, PowerPC, IBM doesn't support RISC V yet
    Reply
  • ahmad1900
    JTWrenn said:
    Am I the only who read that as Alabama and was terrified for a minute?

    Will be interesting to see what they come out with and if any software supports it. For now it has a whole lot to catch up to.
    Does it work well natively, does the Android OS only support RISC V (the question is whether RISC V is good natively, RISC V uses the Android OS, the number of hardware is still limited. Rather than Arm dominating)
    Reply
  • ahmad1900
    das_stig said:
    Always had this crazy thought in my mind for an open source NAS/router.
    Risk-V, open socket, choose your number of cores and speed
    2-4 ram slots for large memory capacity.
    4-8 bays, maybe NVMe and 2.5" SATA models
    2 or more slots for off the shelf wifi cards for AP's
    4+ LAN, minimum of 2.5G, maybe a couple of 10G, managed switch
    TrueNas/Unraid + open source router/linux + other software in isolated containers/jails/vm's

    and if made in bulk, reasonable prices for all the components, yes I can dream:unsure:
    I dont, the risc v experience architecture is still relatively new compared to the arm architecture.
    Reply
  • ahmad1900
    Findecanor said:
    No details about the XuanTie C930 core are public yet, except for some wild claims:
    * Supposed SPECint 2006 performance of 15/GHz.
    * Supposed compliance with the "RVA24" profile, on which work has hardly even started yet.
    I still don't know the performance, just try the product. Don't know which semiconductor is willing to produce it, will it use 7nm SMIC like the Kirin 9000S?
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    ahmad1900 said:
    question, is risc v running well natively? Android OS only supports RISC V (but doesn't make much hardware yet) Docker only supports X86-86, Arm, PowerPC, IBM doesn't support RISC V yet
    In the experiments we've done we not run into issues running content natively. Docker doesn't have official support for RISC V yet, but there are several projects that add support:

    https://github.com/carlosedp/riscv-bringup#virtual-machine-and-pre-built-docker
    and

    https://github.com/carlosedp/riscv-bringup/blob/master/kubernetes/Readme.md
    This is pretty much the same path ARM took until things like above got folded into official support.
    Reply
  • ahmad1900
    JamesJones44 said:
    Dalam eksperimen yang kami lakukan, kami tidak mengalami masalah dalam menjalankan konten secara asli. Docker belum memiliki dukungan resmi untuk RISC V, namun ada beberapa proyek yang menambahkan dukungan:

    https://github.com/carlosedp/riscv-bringup#virtual-machine-and-pre-built-docker
    Dan

    https://github.com/carlosedp/riscv-bringup/blob/master/kubernetes/Readme.md
    Ini adalah jalur yang hampir sama yang diambil ARM hingga hal-hal seperti di atas dimasukkan ke dalam dukungan resmi.
    Does Risc V run optimally docker. (Android, supports Risc V hardware. But it doesn't seem like much compared to the dominant hardware arm. Just try Qualcomm's Risc V hardware)
    Reply