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Comment by throwaway4good | Hacker News Reader

One of the reason for the interest in RISC-V is the US-China tech war and the US long arm banning of China's biggest tech companies access to ARM. However RISC-V is dominated by US companies and even with some parts open source, it will still be subject to sanctions.

A true alternative to ARM need to come out of China.

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The European Union is also investing in RISC-V to become independent when it comes to chips [0, 1]. In the presentation they gave at the RISC-V Forum they explicitly mention tech embargo as one of the reasons why they started this project, together with the need for secure cryptographic functions.

[0] https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu/

[1] https://riscv.org/2019/08/how-the-european-processor-initiat...

That's a direct consequence of the Trump administration bungling its international image.

I'm no fan of Trump but it's worth noting that we tapped Angela Merkel's phone under Nobel Peace Prize Winner President Obama.

Better PR is nice but it doesn't change the underlying incentives.

Sure, but that is not what caused things to happen in 2018/2019 at that level. It is the capricious trade wars with Germany, China, and whoever else that caused this.

On the other hand the tech war is a warning signal for us to decrease our dependency on US technology and going back to building our own stacks.

Ironically these kind of decisions might just give enough boost to Tizen and Harmony to hit hard Android's hegemony.

Well, I don't know, maybe the goal of RISC-V is not to make China happy? Just an idea.

Yep. And that's why these massive engineering companies that now are forced to find ARM-alternatives are going to go for something else.

Though the foundation did move to Switzerland for sort of this reason:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-semiconductors-...

U.S.-based chip-tech group moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S.-based foundation overseeing promising semiconductor technology developed with Pentagon support will soon move to Switzerland after several of the group’s foreign members raised concerns about potential U.S. trade curbs.

Im pretty sure the Chinese would rather just use ARM and keep on moving along their current trajectory and existing long term plans.

https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/27/alibaba_risc_v_chip/

I have no doubt that there will be a Chinese developed processor, I don't see why it would be open or why it would preclude risc-v from being used as well. I have no doubt that both would ultimately be cheap and commercially appealing.

There already is one, https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/08/21/alibaba-on-the-bleed...

RISC-V is based on Switzerland, not US.

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