Chinese web giant Baidu backs RISC-V for the datacenter

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Gee, why could that be? Nah, not that. AI contender might just want better SmartNICs

www.theregister.com/, Mar. 27, 2023 – 

Chinese RISC-V upstart StarFive has revealed that Chinese web giant Baidu has become an investor, to advance use of the open source processor design in the datacenter.

On Chinese social media service QQ, StarFive wrote that it would "work with Baidu to promote the implementation of different forms of high-performance RISC-V products in datacenter scenarios."

"The close cooperation between the two parties will promote the process of RISC-V industrialization, accelerate the innovation of computing power in datacenters, and provide new possibilities for the complex and changing demands on computing power in the AI era," the post added.

It's unclear if that means Baidu is interested in RISC-V CPUs, or if the investment is driven by a desire to have the open source architecture serve other roles in its infrastructure.

StarFive already offers two RISC-V processors it says can fill a role in the datacenter. The 64-bit U-series is suggested as capable of big data applications. The Dubhe Series is suggested for roles such as computational storage, or driving a SmartNIC. The latter application is helped by StarFive claiming Dubhe is the first RISC-V silicon to support virtualization.

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