News New Chinese chip uses IBM's open source Power ISA instead of x86 or Arm — country searches for alternatives to sanctioned US processor designs as f...

[Admin]

Hexin Technology powers on the second-gen HX-C2000 test chip, the TC2, for servers based on the RISC architecture.

New Chinese chip uses IBM's open source Power ISA instead of x86 or Arm — country searches for alternatives to sanctioned US processor designs as f... : Read more

 

[gg83]

"The team has "reconstructed" IBM's closed design methodology with its EDA chip design tools, design flow, and architecture" lmao.

 

[HaninTH]

Recombobulation complete!

 

[bit_user]

New Chinese chip uses IBM's open source Power ISA instead of x86 or Arm

@PaulAlcorn , @JarredWaltonGPU would someone please tell Anton that it's "open standard", not "open source"! Same thing with RISC-V.

You can open source an implementation, not a specification (which is what an ISA is).

Anton is too smart to keep getting this wrong. No, it's not a minor distinction.

 

[Findecanor]

Request clarification of what "open" parts that the Chinese company is using here.

The Power ISA may be "open", but that does not mean that all implementations of it are "open source".
Yet, there do exist a few open source implementations of the Power ISA.

 

[bit_user]

I think it'd be pretty amazing if China ends up saving the POWER ISA. Right now, it looks like it's getting edged out by x86, ARM, and RISC-V.

I don't have much else to say about POWER, other than I hope they focus on software running in LE mode. I'm guessing they will, since I think no official distros still available for it use BE.

It'd be interesting to see a feature comparison of the latest OpenPOWER revision vs. ARMv9-A.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

@PaulAlcorn , @JarredWaltonGPU would someone please tell Anton that it's "open standard", not "open source"! Same thing with RISC-V.

You can open source an implementation, not a specification (which is what an ISA is).

Anton is too smart to keep getting this wrong. No, it's not a minor distinction.

Good point, thanks for the flag. We'll get it fixed.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

@PaulAlcorn , @JarredWaltonGPU would someone please tell Anton that it's "open standard", not "open source"! Same thing with RISC-V.

You can open source an implementation, not a specification (which is what an ISA is).

Anton is too smart to keep getting this wrong. No, it's not a minor distinction.

Fixed, thanks.

 

[t3t4]

Could someone explain to me in a nutshell, what's the big deal with China and AI?

They already make everything the rest of the world has to buy, so the rest of the world making things hard on them only makes it hard on everybody! Where's the logic?

 

[bit_user]

Could someone explain to me in a nutshell, what's the big deal with China and AI?

It's hard to say much about the sanctions without saying too much, but I believe they stem from alleged human rights abuses that were facilitated through the use of AI/mass surveillance technology and China's territorial expansionism (South China Sea, etc.).

They already make everything the rest of the world has to buy, so the rest of the world making things hard on them only makes it hard on everybody! Where's the logic?

Sanctions are typically used as leverage to accomplish some goal. There's a lot of non-public diplomacy between the sides, so we really can't say much about the negotiating positions or where things stand. Everyone knows China will eventually reach technological parity with the rest of the world, so I don't think the aim is to hold them back, as a lot of the public sentiment seems to think.

 

[gg83]

It's hard to say much about the sanctions without saying too much, but I believe they stem from alleged human rights abuses that were facilitated through the use of AI/mass surveillance technology and China's territorial expansionism (South China Sea, etc.).


Sanctions are typically used as leverage to accomplish some goal. There's a lot of non-public diplomacy between the sides, so we really can't say much about the negotiating positions or where things stand. Everyone knows China will eventually reach technological parity with the rest of the world, so I don't think the aim is to hold them back, as a lot of the public sentiment seems to think.

Nailed It!

 

[COLGeek]

To assume that competitors/adversaries won't learn and improve is a failure in understanding reality. Eventually, these activities should spur innovation and competition within the global marketplace.

All politics aside, these sorts of developments are not all bad.