Ventana Micro Systems

As Arm gains more support from major cloud service providers, Ventana Micro Systems is hoping to disrupt the Arm and x86 worlds with data center chips that are based on RISC-V, an open-standard, royalty-free instruction set architecture backed by the likes of Intel, Google and Qualcomm.

The Cupertino, California-based chip design startup plans to release its first RISC-V data center processor, Veyron V1, in the second half of 2023. It’s already making big claims about the processor, saying Veyron V1 can provide competitive single-threaded performance against established rivals in datacenter, client, automotive, 5G and AI applications while providing the most horsepower in a single-socket system. It’s expected to take some time for RISC-V to get to the same level of software compatibility of Arm and x86, and it may take even longer for it to gain acceptance from most data center users. For Ventana’s part, the company said it plans to offer some standard features that datacenter operators come to expect, like RAS and virtualization.