Chips, big news! The Chinese Academy of Sciences announces: Launch! Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance, and others participate

Big news in the chip industry!

On March 26, at the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum annual meeting RISC-V (Reduced Instruction Set Computing, fifth generation) Ecological Technology Forum, the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced a series of important achievements in key technological breakthroughs, industrial collaborative innovation, and talent cultivation in the RISC-V field, launching two major outcomes: the “Xiangshan” open-source computing system and the “Ruyi” RISC-V native operating system, while officially starting the joint research and development plan for the next generation “Kunming Lake” open-source high-performance RISC-V processor and the “Ruyi” operating system.

As the “root technology” of the chip industry, instruction set architecture is the core underlying basis for processor chip design. The fifth-generation RISC-V, with its core features of being open-source, flexible, and efficient, does not require patent fees and supports independent modifications, making it a tool for breaking through traditional technological paths and constructing a globally shared processor ecosystem. It is also an important technological route for China to break through the ecological barriers of chips and develop autonomous and controllable computing power.

The newly released “Xiangshan” open-source high-performance RISC-V processor reaches an internationally advanced level of performance. Bao Yungang, deputy director of the Institute of Computing Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that the “Xiangshan” (Kunming Lake) processor core is currently the world’s most powerful and active open-source RISC-V processor core; the terminal-oriented “Xiangshan” (Nanhu) achieves full coverage from data centers and intelligent computing to terminal scenarios. At the same time, the team has simultaneously built the world’s first data center open-source on-chip interconnection network “Wenyu River” and the first terminal open-source on-chip interconnection IP “Zhujiang,” filling the technical gap in the high-performance open-source on-chip interconnection field, making “Xiangshan” an internationally leading open-source high-performance RISC-V processor system.

It is noteworthy that “Xiangshan” has successfully achieved industrialization and is the first in the global industry to realize product-level delivery and large-scale application of high-performance open-source chips. Bao Yungang stated that the core of the industrialization of “Xiangshan” is that it has paved an innovative path for the industrialization of high-performance open-source chips. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Beijing, has established the Beijing Open Source Chip Research Institute to gather dozens of industry-leading companies in an open-source model, achieving dual empowerment of technological research and development and industrial demand.

Currently, several companies, including Jindeshi Space, Blue Core Computing, Xindong Technology, and Yiswei Computing, have successfully launched commercial chip products based on the “Xiangshan” processor, significantly reducing the chip research and development costs for enterprises and promoting open-source chips to truly transition from the laboratory to large-scale production lines.

The “Ruyi” RISC-V native operating system, released simultaneously with “Xiangshan,” serves as the core software support for the “Xiangshan” series chips, fully supporting international standards and further solidifying the foundation of open-source software led by China. Wu Yanjun, deputy director of the Software Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, stated that software and hardware synergy is key to RISC-V ecological construction. The “Ruyi” system has achieved deep adaptation and optimization with domestic core hardware such as “Xiangshan,” fundamentally changing the industry pain points of previous hardware and software technologies each achieving breakthroughs separately, poor compatibility, and weak collaborative capabilities, advancing China’s RISC-V ecosystem from “individual breakthroughs in software and hardware” to “software and hardware collaborative innovation and ecological integration.”

As of now, “Xiangshan” and “Ruyi” have led to the formation of China’s dominant open-source root community, laying a solid ecological foundation for the development of the open-source chip industry.

At the forum, the next-generation “Kunming Lake” open-source high-performance RISC-V processor joint research and development plan and the “Ruyi” operating system joint development plan were officially launched. Reporters learned that the next-generation “Kunming Lake” joint research and development plan will focus on higher performance, lower power consumption, stronger compatibility, and more complete security protection, continuously enhancing the global competitiveness of “Xiangshan” in the high-end computing power field. The “Ruyi” joint development plan will gather the full chain of industry, academia, research, and application to create a cross-field, cross-industry research and development team to achieve integrated advancement of technology research and development, scenario adaptation, and ecological compatibility. Dozens of organizations, including China Mobile, China Telecom, ZTE, Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, will participate in collaborative tackling, covering the entire industrial chain of chips, operating systems, terminals, and applications, accelerating the formation of an innovative system closely integrating industry, academia, research, and application.

Proofread: Liao Shengchao