Alibaba launches RISC-V-based XuanTie C930 server CPU — AI/HPC chip ships this month, more designs to follow

Image of a processor on a motherboard.
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Alibaba announced its newest CPU release this week with the XuanTie C930. The new RISC-V processor is built for AI-HPC workloads, and Alibaba describes it as its 'first server-grade processor' in an article published by the South China Morning Post.

Damo Academy, Alibaba's research and development institute, announced the XuanTie C930 at a conference in Beijing on Friday. Alibaba first teased the C930 last year when the company confirmed a 2024 release for the server chip. Now, a year after its first teasers, the C930 is here to herald a new era of Alibaba's RISC-V production.

Damo Academy also announced a plan for more new RISC-V chips to follow the C930 under the XuanTie badge: the C908X, R908A, and XL200. These will be intended for AI acceleration, automotive use, and high-speed connectivity, respectively. News of these new chips arrived immediately following Alibaba's announcement of its ¥380 billion ($52 billion) investment plan in AI and cloud infrastructure over the next three years.

Sunny Grimm
Contributing Writer

Sunny Grimm is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has been building and breaking computers since 2017, serving as the resident youngster at Tom's. From APUs to RGB, Sunny has a handle on all the latest tech news.

  • bit_user
    The article said:
    we may never get our hands on the chip to see for ourselves.
    Well, Chips & Cheese recently examined the Xuantie C910. Their analysis was supported by benchmarking the LicheePi single-board computer, which utilizes the T-HEAD TH1520.
    https://chipsandcheese.com/p/alibabat-heads-xuantie-c910So, it's conceivable we'll get some incarnation of the C930 that we can actually benchmark, if not access to a full fledged server, itself.

    The article said:
    RISC-V adoption is one of the only paths for Chinese companies to push forward their CPU innovation
    Loongson seems to be the other main push, at the moment.
    https://chipsandcheese.com/p/can-chinas-loongson-catch-western-designs-probably-not
    Also, don't forget about VIA/Zhaoxin and their x86 activities. Here are some relevant benchmarks (the article also contains benchmarks of Loongson 3A6000):
    https://chipsandcheese.com/i/150375045/zhaoxin
    Reply
  • brucehoult
    Do you have any evidence whatsoever that there is a CHIP shipping next month? I don't believe it.

    The C930 is a CORE. When a core ships, that means that the HDL (e.g. verilog, a computer disk file) is made available for licensing to customers and those customers can then start to design a chip using it, which will then be available several years later.

    The C910 was similarly announced/shipped in July 2019. It took until July 2023 and January 2024 for machines using the TH1520 and SG2042 chips to be delivered to customers -- the Sipeed Lichee Pi 4A and Milk-V Pioneer respectively.
    Reply
  • das_stig
    Go China's RISC-V teams, another competitor in the market will drive innovation and hopefully costs down.
    Reply