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

_Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 2:15 AM EDT · Infrastructure · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

![Alibaba DAMO Academy Claims 'World's Highest Performing RISC-V CPU' With New XuanTie C950 — Primary](https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/03/DCD-Shishir-Mehotra.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.711631919237%2C100%2C78.576736161526&w=1200)

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.

Sources: Reuters, DigiTimes

## Sources

- [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/technology/alibaba-xuantie-c950-risc-v-cpu-2026-03-24/)
- [DigiTimes](https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20260324VL212/alibaba-risc-v-flagship-processor-performance.html)

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Retrieved: 2026-05-10T00:34:31.613Z
Publisher: Tech & Business (techandbusiness.org)