Alibaba DAMO Academy Claims 'World's Highest Performing RISC-V CPU' With New XuanTie C950

Alibaba's research arm DAMO Academy unveiled the XuanTie C950, a 5-nanometer server chip clocked at 3.2 GHz that it describes as the highest performing RISC-V CPU in the world. The chip performs more than three times faster than its predecessor, the XuanTie C920, and is built on the open-source RISC-V architecture rather than proprietary x86 or ARM instruction sets. RISC-V is unaffected by existing US export restrictions, making it strategically important for Chinese firms seeking chip independence. The XuanTie C950 is separate from the AI-focused Zhenwu 810E accelerator announced yesterday. Together, the two announcements signal Alibaba's push to build a domestic chip stack spanning both server compute and AI workloads. Intel and AMD hold the dominant positions in the server CPU market that the C950 is designed to challenge.