Russian outlet Vedomosti.ru today is reporting that the conglomerate Rostec, a Russian state-backed corporation specializing in investment in technology, has penned a deal with server company Yadro and silicon design company Syntacore to develop RISC-V processors for computers, laptops, and servers. Initial reports are suggesting that Syntacore will develop a powerful enough RISC-V design to power government and education systems by 2025.

The cost of the project is reported to be around 30 billion rubles ($400m), with that the organizers of the project plan to sell 60,000 systems based around new processors containing RISC-V cores as the main processing cores. The reports state that the goal is to build an 8-core processor, running at 2 GHz, using a 12-nanometer process, which presumably means GlobalFoundries but at this point it is unclear. Out of the project funding, two-thirds will be provided by ‘anchor customers’ (such as Rostec and subsidiaries), while the final third will come from the federal budget. The systems these processors will go into will operate initially at Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science, as well as the Ministry of Health.

Syntacore already develops its own core with the RISC-V architecture, rather than licensing a design. There have been questions as to whether any current RISC-V design is powerful enough to be used in a day-to-day work machine suitable for administrative services, however with the recent news that Canonical is enabling Ubuntu/Linux on some of SiFive’s RISC-V designs, chances are that by 2025 there will be a sufficient number of software options to choose from should the Russian processor adhere to any specifications required. That being said, it is not uncommon for non-standard processors in places like Russia or China to use older customized forks of Linux to suit the needs of the businesses using the hardware. Syntacore's documentation states that their highest performance 64-bit core already supports Linux.


Syntacore's latest design

This news is an interesting development given that Russia has multiple home-grown CPU prospects in the works already, such as the Elbrus 2000 family of processors that run a custom VLIW instruction set with binary translation for Intel x86 and x86-64; these processors already offer 8-core and multi-socket systems running on Linux. Development on Elbrus is still ongoing with Rostec in the mix, and the project seems focused on high-powered implementations in desktop to server use. In contrast, the new RISC-V development seems to be targeting low-powered implementations for desktop and laptop use. Russia also has Baikal processors using the MIPS32 ISA, built by a Russian supercomputer company.

It will be interesting to see how this story develops: $400m should be sufficient to build a processor and instruct system design at this level, which puts the question on how well the project will execute.

Sources: @torgeek, Vedomosti.ru

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  • ZolaIII - Friday, July 16, 2021 - link

    Well I belong to a people who never known slavery and never had slaves, were truly free always. When they were brought the democracy as a gift from Romans after 100 years war and explained how now they will be free citizens and have their own slave's they said no thanks.
    When you have only two choices which doesn't differ much or at all you have a very little choice and that is US democracy election process.
    US can't deal with it especially not openly if you by that don't mean hashing the media, shouting on protestors and journalists. Besides BLM is just a tip of the iceberg. I really don't want to talk about it but I will if you insist.
  • mode_13h - Sunday, July 18, 2021 - link

    > When you have only two choices

    In the US, the two-party system is primarily about Presidential elections. There are other viable parties in Congress, state, and local governments. Some candidates even get elected to those offices with no party affiliation.

    Protests play a role in raising awareness and getting people involved in the political process. They're nearly always nonviolent, but pandemic-related stresses probably contributed to a small proportion breaking into riots, last year. The amount of rioting was still quite small, but always over-represented by media.
  • ZolaIII - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link

    Whose referring to two political parties and not a very different program.

    Sure thing...
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police_vio...
    Do you need anything else? I will gladly provide.
  • mode_13h - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link

    > Sure thing...
    > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police_vio...

    That's interesting, because it gets to the matter around police accountability and use-of-force policies. This is an issue in *many* countries, particularly more authoritarian ones. In the US, these policies are made by democratically-elected lawmakers, who face a lot of pushback from police unions.

    Fortunately, some progress has recently been made in this area, but there's still a long way to go. People like easy answers and quick fixes, but meaningful progress usually takes time.
  • ZolaIII - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link

    Your joking right? If it whose anyone else than US it would be greated with sanctions, and carpet bomb diplomacy.
    Thers no country in the world (and never whose) with more rasizam. Nope not just African - American, add Latin - American, Irishman, Muslim, Russian (fear policy) and all others. While at it think of labor camps for Japanese in II WW or Guatanamo Bay, how about Havaii? Nope no other country ever done that. Then think about 100+ wars US had direct military engagement in in last 50 years and how it never barred any consequences for monstrosities done (you name it, they done it all including dozens of genocides). And that's "liberal progressive democracy" who's father also whose a racist and US president.
    I really didn't want to come to this but told you I won't remain silent.
  • mode_13h - Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - link

    > Thers no country in the world (and never whose) with more rasizam.

    Ever hear the saying "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"? We should ask some Kosovars and Albanians about racism among Serbians. Last I heard, you guys didn't exactly welcome Syrian refugees, either.

    Sure, the US has ethnic tensions, but also a far more diverse racial & ethnic makeup than anywhere else. In spite of that, interracial violence is actually quite low. Most violence is within homogeneous groups. And for all its shortcomings, racial fairness and equity is better than ever before. We did have a black President, and we currently have a black/Indian VP. Let's see any European countries do that.

    > labor camps for Japanese in II WW

    They weren't labor camps, they were internment camps. That was a long time ago and acknowledged to be a mistake.

    > Guatanamo Bay

    Yes, it's unfortunate. There are only about 100 detainees remaining. It's been politically difficult to deal with. Obama spent 8 years trying to close it and couldn't get it done.

    > how about Havaii?

    What about it? It was incorporated when a lot of countries were building their empires. That wouldn't happen today, though.

    > Nope no other country ever done that.

    Done what, exactly? Pretty much everything bad in the history of the US has happened somewhere else, as well. Even slavery wasn't unique to the US. Again, any nation that's been around long enough is going to have some bad things in its history and blood on its hands.

    > I really didn't want to come to this but told you I won't remain silent.

    At this point, I don't know what you're even responding to. Seems to me you're just trying to talk trash about the US. You don't have to like it. There's a lot not to like about its foreign policy. You can simply say that, without fabricating or exaggerating other bad things about it.

    Truth be told, there are things I don't like about its foreign or domestic policy, as well as the corrupting influence of money on its political system. However much time you spend following and thinking about the politics and policies of the USA, it's not nearly as much as I do. The problems aren't easy ones to fix. Yeah, there are better places than the US, in a lot of ways, but nowhere is perfect.
  • ZolaIII - Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - link

    Kosovo is Serbia, always whose. Thers no such thing as Kosovars nor it ever whose, there are Albanians who don't belong there and Shiptars (Šiptari) which technically are flead pore Albanians back in 50's and 60' that are let to settle there and whole former Yugoslav paid additional taxes in order to help them and provide them a deacent life. They certainly do belong there but it's not their territory by any means. You actively helped ethnical cleansing there (300 to 500K people, Serbs who lived there) did a did a bombing of suverene country without international agreement, used foreign weapons such as dirty depleted Uranium bombs and hit civilian and press taggers.
    Sirian refugees which are stil in Serbia and balkans and taken care of quite good. Think you herd wrong, it whose us allies who mistreated them and from those Croatians the most. By the way you made refugees out of them (more than anyone else).

    They warent labor camps, they were concentration camps (Japanese II World War US camps).

    Hawaii are the modern version of it for American citizens who had misfortune to be pore.

    No one other ever nuked anyone. So how about Naglasaki? It whose clear that it whose not needed. 65K civilians, women and children gone in the blast, more than 200K died all together (blast and radiation poisoning). How about full scale genocid on Native American Indians? Reduced population to marginal error number of 1% (which now recovered to under 3%). Nope no one ever done that.
    How about the killing of about 1M of American Irishmans?

    You are not an old people (nation, nationhood are modern terms), quite opposite. For a comparison purpose mine can be writtenly set to 1000 B.C. By Roman written sources and 7000 B. C. By archaeological excavations.
    I am talking facts and you can trash it as much as you like it won't change anything.

    Do continue to read and study so me by one day truth can be told. By the way on my language truth and justice are the same thing.

    I really don't want to future discus this it will flame on to polemic (Polemos on Greak means war).

    For better and worse diversity is much needed thing in the world we live in. Rest is just ideology and utopia.
    Best regards.
  • FunBunny2 - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    "NASA paying for launches with SpaceX is cheaper than what both the US and Russian governments can do, it's a moot point."

    name one rocket that NASA built, in its owned facility? I bet you can't. all of the rockets used by NASA, at least for manned space, were built by the Military Industrial Complex and paid for by the Taxpayer. the only difference between now and then is that Taxpayer money takes a slightly different route.
  • philehidiot - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    Depends on how you define "built". There's the component level all the way up to the assembly level. They clearly don't make the components (hilarious story about that leading to the invention of the antistatic bag on the casual suggestion of an engineer's wife), but they do have a huge assembly building that they definitely use. It also depends on how you define NASA. JPL can be argued to be part of NASA or not depending on what argument you're trying to win.

    Zolalll, I hope you don't mind, but I'm reading your comments in a thick, stereotypical Russian accent for my amusement. Please feel free to read this in a stereotypical British tea-sipping accent.
  • ZolaIII - Thursday, July 15, 2021 - link

    Don't matter at all as long as you enjoy it bloke. I hope it didn't sound all that stereotypical as I am not an Russian at all, i am a Serb but culturally close enough. For my amusement I will read yours with typical Scottish accent and trow in some swear and curse hire and there to make it more amusing. Hope that makes you happy. Enjoy and have a pint at my behalf.

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