Tech war: US firm SiFive opens China office to tap growing appetite for open-source chips

California-based SiFive has set up a subsidiary in Shanghai to help customers ‘achieve technological breakthroughs’

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SiFive co-founder Krste Asanović. Photo: Handout

Published: 7:30pm, 8 Jan 2025Updated: 7:40pm, 8 Jan 2025

US semiconductor company SiFive, which designs chips based on the open-source RISC-V architecture, has set up a China arm to tap the mainland’s fast-growing market for processors developed without foreign proprietary technology.

Santa Clara, California-based SiFive established a local subsidiary, Shanghai Xinwu Technology, with offices based in the Pudong New Area free-trade zone, the firm said in a statement on WeChat on Tuesday. The move was aimed at “meeting the strong demand” in the “highly valued” Chinese market, it said.

Started in 2015, SiFive is one of the major players in RISC-V, which lets developers configure and customise their own chip designs. It competes with Intel’s X86 and British company Arm Holdings’ architecture, which dominate in the personal computer and smartphone markets, respectively.

Chinese businesses and institutes are betting on RISC-V (pronounced “risk five”) to help reduce their reliance on overseas suppliers, as the US tightens export restrictions on advanced chip technology.

Chinese companies are pouring investments into RISC-V. Photo: Weibo

Earlier this week, a team from the mainland’s top state-backed research institution, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pledged to produce this year a processor based on RISC-V. In 2023, Alibaba Group Holding’s chip-design unit T-Head launched a RISC-V-based controller integrated-circuit. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.