China’s First High-Performance RISC-V Server Processor Introduced – Lingyu Chip

The Lingyu chip has a total of 40 cores. These are 32 general-purpose computing cores (CPU) and eight specialized cores (LPU) designed for AI-related workloads, including working with large language models (LLM). This configuration is aimed at achieving a balance between performance and energy efficiency, thereby reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO). Other characteristics of the processor are not yet disclosed.

Image Source: unsplash.com/Dominic Kurniawan Suryaputra

RiVAI Technologies was founded by Zhangxi Tan. He was mentored by David Patterson, an American computer scientist, professor at UC Berkeley, and 2017 Turing Award winner. Patterson, who developed several RISC architectures in the 1990s and 2000s, serves as a consultant to RiVAI Technologies.

It is noted that RiVAI Technologies has entered into partnerships with more than 50 companies, including Lenovo and SenseTime, to develop an ecosystem around its RISC-V chips. The collaboration is aimed at implementing Lingyu in various industries. The efforts are expected to further promote RISC-V development in China.

Overall, China is actively pursuing research and development in the RISC-V field. In particular, a number of Chinese companies, including T-Head (owned by the giant Alibaba Group Holding), Shanghai Shiqing Technology, Juquan Optoelectronics, Xinsiyuan Microelectronics, and StarFive, have previously formed a patent alliance in the RISC-V field. In addition, Beijing plans to launch a government program to encourage widespread use of RISC-V throughout the country. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is developing RISC-V processors.