Alibaba gets Android 16 running on RISC-V

Alibaba's research and development operation, DAMO Academy, has adapted Android 16 to run on its homebrew RISC-V silicon. A Monday social media post claims that the Academy got Android 16 running on XuanTie 9-series processors. Alibaba didn't say which of those chips run Android 16, a matter of interest because the 9-series ranges from modest models all the way up to AI-optimized server processors. But the outfit has claimed, without pushback, that it's the first to get an RVA23 processor running Android 16. DAMO says it has shared its work with the first batch of XuanTie strategic customers" d hopes they will use it to accelerate the exploration of new RISC-V smart terminal scenarios and significantly shorten the cycle from chip prototype to product launch." The term Smart terminal" is a machine translation artefact. The Reg has seen it appear in Chinese texts that refer to machines ranging from smartphones to PCs to digital signage and even industrial equipment - roles in which Android can certainly do a job. Very few organizations outside China are interested in chips made by the country's tech giants. DAMO Academy's strategic customers" are therefore probably manufacturers who today rely on the likes of Qualcomm or MediaTek for processors. Those manufacturers are keenly aware that China's government is directing local buyers towards homegrown products, a policy that has already seen Lenovo create an entity called Kaitian" that makes products featuring Chinese chips. Kaitian has even created a version of Lenovo's flagship X1 Carbon laptop using local chips. Huawei went a step further by deciding to stop using Android and creating its own Harmony OS" to run on its homegrown chips, a move that both reflected Chinese government policy and made the company less vulnerable to US sanctions. Whichever XuanTie model DAMO Academy made work, it appears to have achieved this feat before the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) project, of which it is a member, managed to do the same. As its name implies, the RISE Project aims to ensure that plenty of significant software can run on RISC-V hardware, an necessary goal because while there's a lot of enthusiasm for the permissively licensed instruction set architecture buyers won't reinvent software stacks in order to adopt it. Alibaba faces strong competition for its chips. Huawei is a major player in Chinese consumer and enterprise tech, Baidu has signaled it plans to spin out and float its Kunlunxin chip design operation, and numerous other companies can already produce decent processors or are working on AI hardware. (R)