Following extensive industry practice and ecosystem exploration, RISC-V completed critical full-stack technology iterations, accelerated product deployment, and improved ecosystem compatibility in the first half of 2026. It has gradually reversed the industry's entrenched perception that it is "only suitable for niche scenarios, relies on customized pilots, and has weak performance and ecosystem," making 2026 a critical watershed for the development of the RISC-V industry.
With the official release of the RVA23 Server Platform Specification 1.0, the underlying hardware and software interfaces for servers have been unified, clearing the core standard obstacles for RISC-V to enter the data center market. Driven by the multiple industrial momentum of standardized system implementation, collaborative adaptation by leading computing power vendors, and architecture migration by global semiconductor companies, this year has been defined by the industry as the first year of RVA silicon. As RISC-V application scenarios continue to expand, it has extended from the traditional embedded field to diverse tracks such as cloud AI, automotive electronics, edge computing, and ultra-low-power consumer terminals. All fields have achieved large-scale commercial progress, officially entering a new stage of commercial substitution promoted by the coordinated development of multiple business formats. The market selection logic has also shifted from passive adaptation to proactive optimization.
01. RVA23 1.0 Implementation: RISC-V Server Ecosystem Welcomes a Unified Foundation
For a long time, instruction set fragmentation has been the core root cause restricting the large-scale penetration of the RISC-V architecture into the server and high-performance computing fields. Relying on its open-source and customizable features, various vendors arbitrarily superimposed private instruction extensions and adopted differentiated IP combination solutions, leading to hardware and software incompatibility among RISC-V chips of different brands. This situation has significantly increased the ecosystem adaptation costs for operating systems, cloud platforms, and compilers. It has also constrained enterprise customers with issues such as difficult business migration and complex long-term operation and maintenance, making them always hesitant to deploy RISC-V computing power businesses on a large scale, ultimately forming an industrial deadlock of "many prototypes and few commercial applications."
The formulation of the RVA23 Instruction Set Baseline Specification and the RVA23 Server Platform Specification 1.0 has resolved this contradiction at its root.
The RVA23 Profile is a kernel-level baseline standard for 64-bit application processors, focusing solely on the instruction set and privileged architecture capabilities of the CPU core. This specification uniformly defines the mandatory capability baseline for processor cores, incorporating key capabilities such as RVV vector operations and hardware virtualization extensions as hard requirements. It has ended the industry chaos of arbitrarily trimming instructions and superimposing private extensions, ensuring that processors from different vendors possess unified basic binary compatibility in both user mode and supervisor mode.
However, the constraint boundaries of RVA23 are strictly limited to the single-core and multi-core processor cores themselves. It only regulates core computing power capabilities such as computing power, memory paging, basic interrupts, and virtualization instructions, without involving any whole-machine platform and system hardware rules. It does not include essential server supporting specifications such as motherboard interconnection, firmware boot, peripheral buses, whole-machine operation and maintenance, and fault tolerance. Precisely because of the low entry threshold and small adaptation cost, general-purpose RISC-V chips such as embedded edge chips and mid-range industrial processors can quickly adapt to the RVA23 standard. This is also the core reason why mid-range RISC-V chips have generally completed the adaptation to this specification in 2025-2026. However, the shortcomings are equally prominent. Chips that only meet RVA23 instruction compatibility lack the system-level supporting capabilities required for server scenarios. If directly deployed on server whole machines, there will be a large number of adaptation gaps such as I/O bus incompatibility, chaotic boot processes, lack of operation and maintenance control, and insufficient security mechanisms, making them completely unable to bear the 7x24-hour stable computing power business of data centers.
In June 2026, the RVA23 Server Platform Specification 1.0, released at the RISC-V Europe Summit, is a whole-machine-level commercial standard built upon the RVA23 S64 kernel baseline. The two form a hierarchical relationship of "chip kernel basic entry ticket—complete commercial pass for data centers." Building on the RVA23 unified instruction set and resolving kernel fragmentation, this specification supplements a full set of exclusive hardware and software constraints for server scenarios. It upgrades multiple optional RVA23 capabilities to mandatory standards, strictly requiring processors to be equipped with server-exclusive extensions such as Sv48 large address space, Ssaia advanced interrupts, Zkr true random entropy source, and Sdext debugging.
At the same time, this specification has unified the full-link system rules for RISC-V server whole machines for the first time, covering a full set of essential data center capabilities such as the UEFI+ACPI standardized boot process, PCIe/IOMMU high-speed bus architecture, high-precision system clock, BMC management protocols MCTP/Redfish, whole-machine RAS reliability mechanisms, secure firmware boot, and hardware performance monitoring units. It targeted and solved key pain points that are commonly existing after pure RVA23 chips are deployed on machines, such as chaotic bus adaptation, fragmented virtual machine I/O performance, inability to automatically tolerate hardware faults, and inconsistent cross-device operation and maintenance. It truly achieves universal deployment of a single set of Linux and virtualized images across different brands of RISC-V servers without modification, filling the standard gap for RISC-V to enter IDC machine rooms on a large scale.
Therefore, the RVA23 Server Platform Specification 1.0 has built a complete hardware and software baseline for RISC-V server scenarios, unifying full-dimensional core capabilities such as virtualization, large-capacity memory management, advanced interrupts, hardware security, and system adaptation. It focuses on consolidating the two high-performance core features of vector computing and hardware virtualization, building a standardized and universal computing power foundation for the entire industry.
For chip manufacturers, there is no need to invest huge costs in building their own independent hardware and software adaptation systems. They can uniformly develop server CPUs, BMC management chips, and AI acceleration cores around the standardized baseline. For the ecosystem and customers, basic hardware and software such as Linux distributions, K8s, OpenStack, databases, and AI inference frameworks can achieve "one-time adaptation, universal across all brands," significantly reducing the business migration and operation and maintenance iteration costs for cloud service providers and data centers. Major manufacturers can comprehensively promote compliant chip tape-out, whole-machine verification, and cluster deployment, and the pace of large-scale commercialization of RISC-V servers is fully accelerated.
02. RISC-V CPUs Begin Direct Connection to GPUs, Entering the Core Computing Power Link
Following the explosion of generative AI and agent technologies, the computing power logic of data centers has undergone a fundamental shift. GPUs are the absolute core during the large model training phase, but the "execution" tasks of agents require CPUs to undertake massive task decomposition, tool invocation, permission verification, and multi-device collaborative scheduling. The heterogeneous collaboration efficiency between CPUs and GPUs has become a key indicator determining the comprehensive computing power of data centers.
In the past, AI data center CPUs were long dominated by Arm and x86. Especially in high-end servers and large-scale clusters, customers are very cautious about choosing new architectures. RISC-V could only serve as an auxiliary control core for servers, remaining outside the core computing power link. However, the deep strategic cooperation between NVIDIA and SiFive has rewritten this situation. The two parties have connected the NVLink Fusion high-speed interconnection technology, achieving hardware-level direct connection between RISC-V CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs, and building a low-latency, high-bandwidth heterogeneous computing system. This means that RISC-V has officiallyenteredthe core computing power layer of AI data centers.
From the perspective of long-term industrial evolution, this direct connection channel opens up multi-level imagination space. On the one hand, dedicated RISC-V processor cores can be customized for agent scenarios, optimizing branch prediction, instruction scheduling, and lightweight context processing capabilities to specifically undertake GPU-supported control flow tasks, forming a new heterogeneous combination of "RISC-V scheduling core + GPU computing core." On the other hand, the open architecture features can lower the R&D threshold for manufacturers' customized chips, giving birth to more differentiated solutions for inference, edge intelligent computing, and distributed agent clusters.
However, ecosystem maturity, operating system adaptation, cluster scheduling software optimization, and large-scale commercial verification are still challenges that RISC-V needs to overcome next. Whether it can rely on the NVIDIA ecosystem to quickly achieve large-scale deployment will become the core variable determining its penetration rate in the intelligent computing market.
03. Standardized Functional Safety Architecture Takes Shape, RISC-V Enters High-Reliability Scenarios
Automotive electronics is a long-term stable core revenue track for Arm. Relying on mature functional safety toolchains, a comprehensive ISO 26262 certification system, and decades of whole-vehicle mass production verification experience, Arm IP monopolizes the market for body controllers, domain controllers, and ADAS real-time processing units. RISC-V, on the other hand, is tearing open the substitution gap in high-reliability automotive scenarios by building a standardized safety system.
The Quintauris industry alliance, jointly established by giants such as Bosch, Infineon, NXP, and Qualcomm, has launched the RT-Europa standardized automotive-grade RISC-V functional safety reference architecture. It covers core automotive-grade requirements such as fault detection, hardware fault tolerance, security isolation, and hardware real-time response, building a complete safety verification process and toolchain system, proving that RISC-V can meet the highest level of reliability requirements in the automotive industry. Currently, RISC-V automotive chips have completed nearly 3,000 layered tests, passing the full series of automotive-grade certifications including AEC-Q100, ISO 26262, and ISO/SAE 21434. Customized electrostatic protection and edge AI exclusive instructions for special working conditions such as off-road vehicles have formed differentiated customization capabilities that are difficult for Arm to replicate.
Currently, RISC-V automotive substitution follows a landing path from shallow to deep: prioritizing entry into body control, lighting management, battery management, and low-power cabin modules, and subsequently gradually extending to autonomous driving domain control. For OEMs, the advantages of RISC-V, such as independently customizable instruction sets, no continuous licensing royalties, and controllable supply chains, can effectively reduce long-term chip procurement costs and supply chain disruption risks. In the future, the automotive market will form a long-term coexistence pattern of Arm and RISC-V dual architectures.
04. Qualcomm Goes All In, RISC-V Rapidly Penetrates the Wearable Device Field
If the breakthroughs in the server and automotive fields represent long-term industrial potential, Qualcomm's acquisition of the high-performance RISC-V company Ventana Micro Systems, and its joint promotion with Google of the R&D of the new generation Snapdragon Wear platform based on RISC-V, the changes in the wearable device field may reflect the speed of its commercialization even more than servers.
Qualcomm itself is a core participant in the Arm ecosystem, and its mobile SoCs have long been developed relying on the Arm architecture. Its proactive transformation to RISC-V is essentially a rational choice driven by industrial costs and customization needs. Wearable devices such as watches, TWS earphones, and smart glasses are highly sensitive to power consumption, hardware size, and BOM costs. Arm's fixed IP licensing model and standardized instruction combinations limit manufacturers' space for deep customization, and the continuously collected architecture licensing fees and tiered royalty shares continue to increase the cost of terminal products.
In contrast, the RISC-V basic instruction set is open-source and free. Manufacturers can freely trim instructions and add low-power exclusive extensions according to the power consumption needs of the device, without being limited by Arm's fixed IP solutions, perfectly matching the needs of lightweight, low-cost, and differentiated function development for wearable terminals.
The demonstration effect of Qualcomm is rapidly spreading. A large number of terminal design companies, foundries, and brand manufacturers are lowering their risk expectations for introducing RISC-V. More hardware and software R&D resources are leaning towards open architectures, and low-power consumer terminals have become a track that RISC-V can quickly penetrate.
05. RISC-V is Not a Comprehensive Substitution, but a Selective Substitution
The four major tracks of servers, AI computing power, automotive, and wearables share the same underlying core demand—edge AI computing. Industrial sensors, smart cameras, automotive perception units, wearable devices, humanoid robots, and IoT (Internet of Things) gateways jointly constitute a massive edge terminal network, putting forward diverse requirements for low power consumption, low cost, real-time inference, local privacy computing, and personalized hardware customization.
The modular architecture of RISC-V is naturally adapted to edge AI scenarios: it can flexibly combine general-purpose CPU cores, dedicated AI NPUs, custom acceleration instructions, and hardware security units, integrating control, perception, and inference multiple capabilities on a single chip. Software and hardware solutions such as Guoxin DPNPU, ESWIN RISAA platform, and Alibaba T-Head vector extensions further improve edge-side inference capabilities. In edge-side AI workloads, RISC-V vector units can undertake some non-linear operators, paired with dedicated accelerators to cover half of the matrix operations. Unified instructions connect multi-layer heterogeneous computing power, and the collaboration efficiency far exceeds that of closed architectures.
Arm still retains stock advantages in toolchains and operating system ecosystems in the edge market, but the open, controllable, low-cost, and flexible customization features of RISC-V precisely hit the core pain points of incremental edge terminals, and it is expected to become the segmented market that completes large-scale substitution first.
However, it is still necessary to rationally distinguish the two concepts of "substitution" and "disruption." In the short term, RISC-V cannot comprehensively replace Arm and x86, and the three will form a differentiated coexistence pattern in the long term.
Arm's core advantages are concentrated in high-end flagship mobile SoCs, large and complex autonomous driving computing platforms, and mature general-purpose high-performance computing fields. The massive commercial software accumulated over decades, complete verification systems, and mature developer communities have built extremely high migration thresholds, which are difficult to shake in the short term.
Relying on more than 40 years of continuous iteration, x86 firmly holds the general-purpose computing foundation. Its core advantages are reflected in desktop PCs, workstations, traditional enterprise-level servers, large-scale scientific computing, and complex commercial database scenarios. The complete Windows ecosystem, mature hardware virtualization capabilities, extremely strong backward compatibility, and massive industrial software and professional toolchains constitute an insurmountable ecological barrier. The vast majority of closed-source commercial software and industry-specific design software prioritize adaptation to x86, forming user usage habits and operation and maintenance systems over the long term. It is irreplaceable in general-purpose computing scenarios that pursue seamless software compatibility and single-thread peak performance.
Therefore, the real opportunity for RISC-V lies in selective substitution. It will prioritize entering scenarios that are more sensitive to cost, power consumption, customization, autonomous controllability, and system-level innovation. Specifically, the advantageous scenarios for RISC-V mainly include AI inference servers, low-power wearables, automotive domain control, edge intelligence, industrial control, and IoT terminals.
In contrast, in the short term, RISC-V still faces significant challenges in fields such as high-end general-purpose computing, flagship mobile chips, traditional large enterprise servers, and complex high-performance computing. This is not because the instruction set itself is not advanced enough, but because the ecological migration cost is too high, and the software stack, toolchains, verification systems, and customer trust all require time to accumulate.
Therefore, the more likely pattern in the future is not "RISC-V replacing Arm" or "RISC-V disrupting x86," but the long-term coexistence of x86, Arm, and RISC-V. x86 continues to occupy markets with strong compatibility requirements such as desktops, general-purpose enterprise servers, and professional workstations; Arm continues to maintain its advantages in the mature high-end mobile, automotive computing power, and cloud-native server markets; RISC-V, on the other hand, expands rapidly in incremental markets, customized scenarios, cost-sensitive scenarios, and fields with prominent autonomous controllability requirements.
From the perspective of current industrial progress, 2026 will be a critical year for RISC-V to move from technical verification to commercial deployment. A series of progress means that RISC-V is no longer just a concept or slogan, but has already met the conditions to enter core systems. In the next two to three years, the focus of market observation will no longer be "whether RISC-V can be used," but "whether RISC-V can achieve stable mass production, reduce costs, improve performance, and undertake the migration of existing ecosystems in specific scenarios." Future chip design, system integration, and software ecosystems will usher in more combination space.