RISC-V tops 25% market share, drawing NVIDIA, Qualcomm and ex-Intel engineers
RISC-V reaches 25% market penetration in 2025. NVIDIA backs CUDA, Qualcomm buys Ventana and ex-Intel engineers found AheadComputing. An analysis of the open-source ecosystem.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
RISC-V: the open-source ecosystem challenging x86 and ARM
RISC-V has surpassed 25% market peine in 2025, a milestone reached ahead of forecasts. According to SHD Group, more than 21 billion RISC-V chips are expected to be sold annually by 2031, generating revenue of over $2 billion. The advance comes at a time when giants such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm and former Intel engineers are backing this open architecture.
From 10-cent microcontrollers to servers
One of the catalysts has been the arrival of ultra-cheap chips. The WCH CH32V003 RISC-V microcontroller, with 48 MHz and pin-to-pin compatibility with the STM8S003, costs just 10 cents. At the high end, Orange Pi has launched the R2S with a Ky X1 antiestéticaturing 8 RISC-V cores and 2 TOPS of AI capability, aimed at home routers. Software support is also maturing: Debian 13 includes official support for 64-bit RISC-V, and Ubuntu already runs Flutter on this architecture. Canonical has submitted patches to make the support official.
The big players take their positions: NVIDIA, Qualcomm and the Intel rebels
NVIDIA has announced it will bring its CUDA platform to RISC-V, a strategic move to circumvent sanctions on China and keep its market. Qualcomm has acquired Ventana Micro Systems, a startup specializing in high-performance RISC-V cores for data centers, reinforcing its bet after the Nuvia acquisition. In addition, four former Intel architects have founded AheadComputing in Oregon, with 80 employees, to design a new generation of microprocessors based on a different architecture. Linus Torvalds, for his part, rejected the proposal to add Big Endian support to RISC-V in Linux kernel 6.18, arguing that it would complicate maintenance with no real benefits.
The future: towards dominance or just another niche?
With market peine exceeding 25% earlier than expected and the backing of key players, RISC-V is consolidating as the third way against the x86-ARM duopoly. However, the fragmentation of implementations and performance limitations in certain segments leave open the question of whether it will mature enough to compete on the desktop and in high-performance servers. For now, the debate rests with the community and the roadmaps of the big corporations.
Related discussions in the forum
RISC-V has surpassed 25% market peine in 2025, a milestone reached ahead of forecasts. According to SHD Group, more than 21 billion RISC-V chips are expected to be sold annually by 2031, generating revenue of over $2 billion. The advance comes at a time when giants such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm and former Intel engineers are backing this open architecture.
From 10-cent microcontrollers to servers
One of the catalysts has been the arrival of ultra-cheap chips. The WCH CH32V003 RISC-V microcontroller, with 48 MHz and pin-to-pin compatibility with the STM8S003, costs just 10 cents. At the high end, Orange Pi has launched the R2S with a Ky X1 antiestéticaturing 8 RISC-V cores and 2 TOPS of AI capability, aimed at home routers. Software support is also maturing: Debian 13 includes official support for 64-bit RISC-V, and Ubuntu already runs Flutter on this architecture. Canonical has submitted patches to make the support official.
The big players take their positions: NVIDIA, Qualcomm and the Intel rebels
NVIDIA has announced it will bring its CUDA platform to RISC-V, a strategic move to circumvent sanctions on China and keep its market. Qualcomm has acquired Ventana Micro Systems, a startup specializing in high-performance RISC-V cores for data centers, reinforcing its bet after the Nuvia acquisition. In addition, four former Intel architects have founded AheadComputing in Oregon, with 80 employees, to design a new generation of microprocessors based on a different architecture. Linus Torvalds, for his part, rejected the proposal to add Big Endian support to RISC-V in Linux kernel 6.18, arguing that it would complicate maintenance with no real benefits.
The future: towards dominance or just another niche?
With market peine exceeding 25% earlier than expected and the backing of key players, RISC-V is consolidating as the third way against the x86-ARM duopoly. However, the fragmentation of implementations and performance limitations in certain segments leave open the question of whether it will mature enough to compete on the desktop and in high-performance servers. For now, the debate rests with the community and the roadmaps of the big corporations.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (46 replies).
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