RISE—RISC-V Software Ecosystem—is launched by the Linux Foundation Europe

Today, the Linux Foundation Europe launched the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) project. RISE brings together many software and hardware vendors to accelerate “the availability of software for high-performance and power-efficient RISC-V cores running high-level operating systems for a variety of market segments.” Google, Intel, MediaTek, Nvidia, Qualcomm Technologies, Red Hat, and Samsung founded it.

RISC-V, the free and open standard instruction set architecture, is having a moment as some of the largest technology vendors want to break away from the x86 standard and Arm’s IP to build their own, specialized processors without paying licensing fees. While Intel is part of this new collaboration and other RISC-V initiatives, that may be more a sign of its current predicaments and unyielding hope that it can finally build a successful foundry business than its genuine interest in the technology.

“Accelerating RISC-V support in the open source software ecosystem, aligned with platform standards, is critical to RISC-V adoption,” said Intel VP and GM of system software engineering Mark Skarpness. Intel is pleased to join other industry leaders in RISE to advance this goal.

The Linux Foundation Europe says project members will provide engineering talent and financial support to meet the steering committee’s software requirements.

“The RISE Project enables RISC-V in open source tools and libraries (LLVM, GCC, etc.) to speed implementation and time-to-market,” said Linux Foundation Europe General Manager Gabriele Columbro. “RISC-V is a cornerstone of European technology and industry, so we’re honored to provide a neutral, trusted home for the RISE Project under Linux Foundation Europe.”