Open Source RISC-V Chips Fuel China’s Tech Ascent

While most of the global tech spotlight has focused on Western giants and their proprietary innovations, a silent yet seismic shift has been unfolding in the East. For years, China has battled trade restrictions, chip embargoes, and Western scepticism—all while building its own technological momentum.

Now, in 2025, a new chapter is being written. By embracing open-source architectures like RISC‑V and aligning national policy with engineering ambition, China is not just catching up—it’s carving out a new playbook.

How did we get here? What strategies turned China from a copycat into a serious contender? And what does the West risk if it continues to underestimate the world’s largest manufacturing powerhouse?

China’s Triumph Over Western Silicon

It’s no secret that the West has been locked in a cold war with China for the better part of two decades ,  not the tanks‑and‑jets kind of war, but a strategic, economic, and technological showdown that’s reshaping the global order.

It all began with China’s meteoric rise in the manufacturing sector. Fuelled by a blend of strategic intellectual property theft, a total disregard for fair labour practices, and, in some cases, outright industrial espionage, China cracked the code on how to mass‑produce high‑tech goods at an unprecedented scale. Basically, if it wasn’t bolted down, copied, or reverse‑engineered, it was only because nobody thought to try yet.

Naturally, this didn’t sit well with Western powers. As Chinese factories churned out phones, computers, and even critical infrastructure components, the U.S. and its allies responded with sanctions, tariffs, and technology embargoes. The most visible battleground? Semiconductors.

Throughout the late 2010s, the West tightened the screws hard. China’s access to bleeding‑edge nodes from TSMC and other major fabs was cut off. While the rest of the world was busy drooling over the latest 5 nm and 3 nm chips, China was, at best, stuck playing catch‑up around the 14 nm class , though SMIC’s second‑generation “N+1” process (≈7 nm) is now in pilot, powering Huawei’s Kirin 9010 and Ascend 920 parts, showing the gap is closing fast even if true 3 nm remains out of reach.

Anyone paying attention could see it coming a mile away: China wasn’t going to sit quietly and wait for mercy. Instead, it turned toward one of the most powerful and underappreciated movements in modern engineering, open source.

Beijing’s RISC‑V Play Becomes Policy

The rise of architectures like RISC‑V offered China a golden opportunity. Open‑source hardware and software, generously shared by millions of makers, engineers, and researchers on GitHub and elsewhere, laid out the blueprint for a technological revolution, no permission required. By leveraging community‑driven projects, China sidestepped traditional barriers and started developing its own technologies faster and cheaper than anyone expected.

That bottom‑up push is now backed from the top: on 29 March 2025, China’s Ministry of Industry & Information Technology (MIIT) and the Cyberspace Administration of China published draft guidelines mandating that all new domestic IoT chips adopt the RISC‑V ISA by 2027, sweetening the deal with tax breaks for server‑grade designs.

Now, here we are in 2025, and the reality is stark: China is building an entire ecosystem on top of RISC‑V, Zephyr, open‑source compilers, and home‑grown innovation. And it’s not just cloning anymore ,  it’s a real advancement. Alibaba’s DAMO Academy unveiled the C930, a 96‑core, 3.2 GHz server‑class RISC‑V CPU, in April 2025, and Baidu plus Loongson have tape‑outs scheduled for the second half of the year. The country has spun up its own semiconductor foundries, designed its own IP, and built vertically integrated supply chains that the West can only dream of (or, more accurately, try to regulate).

Meanwhile, Western nations,  hamstrung by bureaucratic incompetence, hollowed‑out manufacturing bases, and a workforce more focused on TikTok dances than technical trades , are forgetting how to build anything at all.

Washington’s Belated Pushback

Open‑source may be permission‑free, but it isn’t scrutiny‑free. The U.S. Commerce Department opened a probe in April 2024 into China’s use of RISC‑V for advanced chips, and a bipartisan bill floated in May 2025 would restrict U.S. nationals from contributing to “sensitive” open‑source processor cores. Whether that can be enforced without gutting the very openness that made RISC‑V successful remains to be seen.

The Resulting Dependency

The result? A dangerous and frankly embarrassing dependency. While the West still owns most of the leading‑edge CPU/GPU stack, it relies heavily on China for mature‑node power‑management ICs, wireless combo chips, and the rare‑earth magnets that wind up in everything from smartphones to F‑35 actuators. In trying to isolate China, we forced it into desperation , and, in doing so, created a technological superpower that no longer needs to ask permission.

Chinese Chipmakers Explore Open‑Source Alternative to American IP

In a move that is being seen as a significant shift in the semiconductor industry, Chinese chipmakers are increasingly turning to the open‑source RISC‑V instruction‑set architecture as an alternative to American intellectual property. As the semiconductor market continues to evolve, the use of open‑source alternatives is gaining traction among Chinese firms, who are looking to reduce their reliance on Western IP.

The open‑source RISC‑V is an alternative to proprietary ISAs such as x86 and Arm, which have dominated the semiconductor industry for decades. Where early RISC‑V parts were confined to microcontrollers, China’s latest launches show genuine data‑centre‑class silicon. Because the RISC‑V ISA doesn’t require any special permissions to develop and deploy, it has become an attractive option for Chinese firms facing tightening export restrictions and trade embargoes from the U.S. By using RISC‑V, Chinese chipmakers can reduce their dependence on American IP and create custom processors for a wide range of applications.

Another key advantage of RISC‑V is its flexibility and customisability. Unlike proprietary instruction sets, RISC‑V can be modified and extended to suit specific requirements, making it ideal for diverse workloads. Additionally, the open‑source nature of RISC‑V makes it easier for developers to create custom processors and integrate new features, accelerating innovation.

What Happens Next: Hard Choices for the West

If the West seriously wants to push back against China’s rise in technology , and I mean seriously, not just making noise for the cameras — then its current playbook needs to be thrown in the shredder.

Tariffs and import duties aren’t going to cut it. Slapping an extra 100 % on Chinese electronics sounds tough on paper but in reality? It’s barely a speed bump. China’s internal market is now so massive, so self‑sustaining, that it doesn’t need Western buyers to keep its innovation engine running. When you have 1.4 billion people ready to consume and a government willing to fund strategic industries at any cost, you don’t fold because a few markets slam the door.

The hard truth is this: China is already operating at super‑power capacity in semiconductors. No embargo or sanctions list is going to roll back the clock. The genie is out of the bottle. At best, we can contain China’s influence in our own critical industries. At worst, we sit around while they sprint past.

And make no mistake, China now holds serious leverage. If it ever wanted to, it could slam the brakes on the West’s economy overnight: deny access to raw materials like rare‑earth elements, limit shipments of critical ICs, or squeeze the supply of everyday components that quietly keep the world running. It wouldn’t even need to fire a shot.

That’s why, if the West has any sense left, it needs to start rebuilding. Now.

Step one: Bring back manufacturing.

Not just shiny “next‑gen” fabs promising 2 nm processors by 2030. I’m talking about the gritty, unsexy manufacturing of all the small parts, too, voltage regulators, comparators, discrete transistors, memory chips — the lifeblood of every product, from toaster ovens to fighter jets. Without a reliable domestic supply chain, the West remains exposed.

Step two: Deploy more foundries aimed at mature nodes.

Everyone loves to talk about 3 nm breakthroughs. Great. But what about 28 nm? 65 nm? 90 nm? These are workhorse nodes that power industrial equipment, automotive systems, and medical devices, the things you can’t afford to run out of. The West needs foundries that can churn out these reliable chips at scale. Forget the hype cycle; think about strategic stability.

Step three: Audit and remove Chinese hardware wherever it matters.

There’s no getting around it: a serious national review is needed. Where is Chinese silicon embedded into Western infrastructure? How can it be replaced or isolated? It’s going to be painful, slow, and expensive, but the cost of inaction will be even greater down the line.

Of course, there is another option. It’s a long shot, but it’s there: accept that China is here to stay, and maybe, just maybe, rethink the nature of the competition. Rather than trying to crush or contain China, the West could pursue mutual economic coexistence, two industrial juggernauts collaborating where possible, competing where necessary, and recognising that global prosperity might actually be better served without constantly trying to kneecap each other.

Unlikely? Sure.

Impossible? No.

But either way, pretending the old world order still exists is a fool’s game. The sooner the West faces that reality, the better.