Recent developments have underscored the growing momentum behind open-source chip architecture as it pushes beyond terminal devices and into the data center market.
At the sixth RISC-V China Summit, Ahead Intelligence (Beijing) Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. officially unveiled its V100 chip product and simultaneously introduced three categories of complete server solutions covering computing, intelligent computing, and storage.
This chip is the industry's first general-purpose computing chip that fully complies with RISC-V server specifications. As domestic computing power deployment accelerates, the open-source chip architecture that was once primarily used in terminal devices is formally stepping into data center scenarios, opening a new path for the domestic computing industry that differs from traditional architectures.
During the summit, Chen Zhijian, founder and CEO of Ahead Intelligence, said in an exclusive interview that open-source chips represent an important niche track in the integrated circuit field, holding key value for seizing discourse power, ecological high ground, and cultivating software ecosystems.
First-Generation Cloud Chip Lands
As the company's first computing chip oriented toward the cloud, V100 completes the company's product layout from terminals to the cloud. Previously, related chips in the industry were mainly applied in terminal products such as smartphones and intelligent robots.
V100 has opened up the entire adaptation chain spanning chips, firmware, and operating systems. Mainstream operating systems can be directly installed and run without the need for separately customized systems as was the case with past embedded chips, which can reduce adaptation costs for server manufacturers.
The chip's applications are mainly oriented toward scenarios including data center general computing, intelligent agent infrastructure, and domestically produced intelligent computing platforms.
On the hardware level, V100 adopts a 46-core hybrid microarchitecture, supports multi-channel memory and high-speed expansion interfaces, and can externally connect multiple computing acceleration cards, network cards, and storage devices.
Targeting the rapidly developing intelligent agent application scenarios, V100 comes with a built-in security isolation mechanism, paired with a lightweight sandbox solution, to build a solid security defense line with lower resource overhead and reduce security risks during application operation.
Chen Zhijian stated that the core significance of V100 is to truly bring this open-source architecture into the data center. RISC-V is advancing toward a deployable, scalable data center market.
In his view, China's RISC-V industry chain has broad prospects, with related technologies and ecosystems developing rapidly, though there is still room for improvement in the maturity of the architecture. The next-generation product is expected to launch by the end of 2028, with performance expected to catch up to mainstream industry standards.
Relying on a unified technology roadmap spanning terminals, edge, and cloud, many domestic enterprises have already deployed RISC-V chips in intelligent robots, and regard the improvement of the open-source architecture computing ecosystem as a long-term goal.
The new cloud product mainly undertakes data scheduling and preprocessing work within computing clusters, making it an indispensable link in computing servers.
Opportunities Emerge From Switching Tracks
As an open and shared instruction set architecture, RISC-V provides the domestic computing industry with an opportunity for differentiated development, eliminating the need to fully follow the already mature and closed traditional system in catch-up efforts, and instead building an independent computing foundation.
"The RISC-V track is similar to the new energy vehicle track in its early years," Chen Zhijian said. In the coming three to five years, the market size related to RISC-V may not be particularly large, but its incremental potential is outstanding.
The entire industry is currently still in an early stage of development, similar to the new energy vehicle market around 2019, where stable industry leaders have not yet fully formed, and many technology companies are also positioning themselves through self-development, acquisitions, and other means.
After about a decade of continuous refinement, China's RISC-V-related industry is expected to develop global competitiveness.
Chen Zhijian acknowledged that the RISC-V industry currently faces two unavoidable practical challenges: first, the high investment required for complete server systems makes enterprises more cautious in choosing new architectures; second, software support accumulation remains insufficient, and data center scenarios are complex, meaning that the higher the architecture performance, the greater the workload of supporting software adaptation, requiring long-term sustained investment in ecosystem building.
Behind the lengthy ecosystem-building cycle lies the high research and development cost of server chips. In Chen Zhijian's view, the research and development investment for a single server chip is enormous, and the characteristics of high investment and long cycles also make funding prone to fluctuations with market sentiment.
The RISC-V track saw rapidly rising attention in the first half of this year, while enthusiasm moderated in the second half due to the overall capital market environment. Chen Zhijian believes that the industry's investment logic is shifting, and capital will place greater emphasis on enterprises' technological accumulation, deployment scenarios, and whether they can form a stable commercial closed loop.
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