Shanghai-based semiconductor start-up StarFive aims to boost adoption of its chips with the financial backing of the Hong Kong government, according to its founder, as China bets on the open-source RISC-V architecture to strengthen its chip industry amid escalating tensions with the US.
The six-year-old RISC-V chipmaker secured an undisclosed sum from the Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC), the government arm in charge of managing HK$62 billion (US$8 billion) of funds to foster innovation in the city, the two parties said on Friday.
The partnership would see Hong Kong support StarFive in rolling out RISC-V chip applications in the city, founder and CEO Thomas Xu Tao said in an interview.
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“RISC-V has moved beyond its initial phase of foundational research … Its current focus is on real-world applications,” Xu said. “Implementing use cases is actually really difficult in the early stages and needs government guidance.”
RISC-V, pronounced “risk five”, is an open-source instruction set architecture that allows developers to configure and customise their chip designs. It competes with Intel’s x86 and Arm Holdings’ architecture, which dominate the personal computer and smartphone markets, respectively.
China has been investing heavily on RISC-V, an open-source hardware instruction set architecture. Photo: Shutterstock alt=China has been investing heavily on RISC-V, an open-source hardware instruction set architecture. Photo: Shutterstock>
While RISC-V is not as widely used as Arm or x86, and most of its products still lag in performance, its open-source code base and energy efficiency have contributed to its growing popularity in recent years.
Chinese businesses and the government are hoping that RISC-V can reduce reliance on foreign suppliers as the US tightens export controls on advanced chip technology. Hong Kong has also pledged to develop its RISC-V industry to drive the city’s economic growth and secure a position in China’s semiconductor landscape.
“The design and application of RISC-V open-source chips is an important part of strategic planning of [Hong Kong’s] future,” the city’s finance chief Paul Chan Mo-po said in his weekly blog on Sunday.
StarFive’s Towngas Chip, a RISC-V processor launched in November 2022 in collaboration with the Hong Kong and China Gas Company (Towngas), is set to be deployed in smart gas metres across Hong Kong as early as the second quarter, according to Xu.
With the application scope of the Towngas chip remaining relatively “small and narrow”, StarFive’s partnership with HKIC could open up larger use cases in the future, said Alan Chan, managing partner of Full Vision Capital, the founding investor of StarFive.
“Their endorsement is very important to us,” he said.
Peter Lee Ka-kit, the elder son of late real estate tycoon Lee Shau-kee. Photo: Dickson Lee alt=Peter Lee Ka-kit, the elder son of late real estate tycoon Lee Shau-kee. Photo: Dickson Lee>
Full Vision Capital is the family office of Peter Lee Ka-kit, chairman of Towngas and co-chairman of Henderson Land Development, one of Hong Kong’s leading developers founded by his father, Lee Shau-kee. The elder Lee, Hong Kong’s second-richest man with an estimated wealth of US$27.8 billion according to Forbes, died earlier this week at the age of 97.
StarFive also plans to launch a more advanced 12-nanometre RISC-V processor designed for data-centre servers named “Lion Rock”, after a famous mountain in Hong Kong. Xu said mass production of Lion Rock could begin by the end of this year or early next year.
Xu founded StarFive in 2019, recognising the opportunities presented by RISC-V for new chipmakers in a market largely dominated by competitors focusing on proprietary technology.
Around that time, Peter Lee started seeking out home-grown chip firms after the US government imposed a seven-year export ban on ZTE that cut the Chinese telecoms equipment giant off from essential components and services, Chan said.
“He was already telling us at that time that China eventually needs to develop its own chips,” Chan said.
China has been doubling down on RISC-V. In January, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a top government research organisation, announced plans to deliver its RISC-V-based XiangShan central processing unit this year.
T-Head, the semiconductor unit of Alibaba Group Holding, last month unveiled the server-grade XuanTie C930 RISC-V processor, designed for high-performance computing applications, including data-centre servers and autonomous vehicles. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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