Something to make Arm, Intel and AMD squirm; Nvidia, Qualcomm, Google and Samsung will deliver AI-focused presentations at RISC-V Summit

RISC-V
(Image credit: RISC-V)

The recent RISC-V Summit in Santa Clara, California, saw major industry players like Nvidia, Qualcomm, Google, and Samsung deliver presentations focused on AI and the expanding role of the RISC-V architecture.

The involvement of such big name players put a spotlight on the growing momentum behind RISC-V, which is increasingly being seen as viable challenger to proprietary architectures like Arm and x86.

Nvidia, which has used RISC-V in its GPU microcontrollers for nearly a decade, presented a 20-minute keynote titled “One Architecture, Dozens of Applications, Billions of Processors,” presented by its VP of Multimedia Architecture/ASIC, Frans Sijstermans exploring the company has used RISC-V to improve its products, highlighting the architecture’s growing influence in GPU design.

Building new AI accelerators

Having previously announced its long-term commitment to RISC-V, Qualcomm also took to the stage to discuss Sail and other alternative approaches to providing a single source of truth for the RISC-V ISA. The company also participated in a keynote panel on the future of AI and security, alongside Nvidia and others.

Samsung highlighted how it has successfully integrated RISC-V CPUs into its embedded systems, and offered insights on how Samsung Foundry is helping customers innovate with RISC-V. The company also discussed ways it has optimized chip and chiplet performance to create smarter, more efficient systems.

One of the definite highlights of the event was a talk from Google DeepMind’s Cliff Young and Martin Maas, who spoke on the benefits of building new AI accelerators with RISC-V. Google’s TPUs are based on the architecture, and the session covered the pair’s experiences at Google designing and deploying successful accelerators and the challenges faced along the way.

Although widespread server and PC adoption may take time, RISC-V is gaining momentum in both the AI and automotive sectors, with other summit speakers discussing more about this and cover how upcoming computing trends could be shaped by the architecture, including RISC-V’s role in generative AI and high-performance computing.

More from TechRadar Pro

Wayne Williams
Editor

Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.

Read more
RISC-V
Startup formed by former Intel engineers and backed by AMD legendary chip designer wants to become the Arm of RISC-V
DC-Roma RISC-V Mainboard
The rise of RISC: 2025 will be the year of the first quasi-mainstream RISC-V laptop as confirmed by the CEO of Framework but I don't think it will be ready for primetime
Orange servers and networks
Alibaba doubles down on RISC-V architecture with a new secretive 'server-grade' chip that will put AMD and Intel on alert
Representation of AI
These are the 10 hottest AI hardware companies to follow in 2025
SambaNova runs DeepSeek
Nvidia rival claims DeepSeek world record as it delivers industry-first performance with 95% fewer chips
Samsung 36GB HBM3E 12H DRAM
Samsung HBM roadmap shows Google could become Nvidia's fiercest competitor in AI by 2026, but I wonder what's happening to Microsoft
Latest in Pro
Isometric demonstrating multi-factor authentication using a mobile device.
NCSC gets influencers to sing the praises of 2FA
Sam Altman and OpenAI
OpenAI is upping its bug bounty rewards as security worries rise
Context Windows
Why are AI context windows important?
BERT
What is BERT, and why should we care?
A person holding out their hand with a digital AI symbol.
AI is booming — but are businesses seeing real impact?
A stylized depiction of a padlocked WiFi symbol sitting in the centre of an interlocking vault.
Dangerous new CoffeeLoader malware executes on your GPU to get past security tools
Latest in News
Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con up-close from app store
Nintendo's new app gave us another look at the Switch 2, and there's something different with the Joy-Con
cheap Nintendo Switch game deals sales
Nintendo didn't anticipate that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was 'going to be the juggernaut' for the Nintendo Switch when it was ported to the console, according to former employees
Three angles of the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M4 laptop above a desk
Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review roundup – should you buy Apple's new lightweight laptop?
Witchbrook
Witchbrook, the life-sim I've been waiting years for, finally has a release window and it's sooner than you think
Amazon Echo Smart Speaker
Amazon is experimenting with renaming Echo speakers to Alexa speakers, and it's about time
Shigeru Miyamoto presents Nintendo Today app
Nintendo Today smartphone app is out now on iOS and Android devices – and here's what it does