RISC-V: The Escape Route from Western Silicon
Intel owns x86. ARM Holdings licenses ARM. Both are Western controlled. Both contain surveillance infrastructure you cannot audit.
RISC-V belongs to no one. RISC-V belongs to everyone.
This is the escape route.
The Problem With Existing Architectures:
| Architecture | Owner | Surveillance | Auditable |
|---|---|---|---|
| x86/x64 | Intel/AMD | ME / PSP (Ring -3) | No |
| ARM | ARM Holdings (SoftBank/NVIDIA blocked) | TrustZone | Partially |
| RISC-V | No one (open standard) | None by default | Yes |
When you buy an Intel chip, you buy MINIX watching your memory. When you license ARM, you license whatever the licensor embedded. When you implement RISC-V, you implement exactly what you choose.
What Is RISC-V?
RISC-V (pronounced “risk five”) is an open-source Instruction Set Architecture born at UC Berkeley in 2010. The specification is public. Anyone can implement it. No licensing fees. No permission required.
The “V” is Roman numeral five — the fifth generation of RISC research at Berkeley. It is also, coincidentally, the symbol of victory. And of virus.
RISC-V spreads. It infects supply chains. It replicates in fabs across Asia. The West has no vaccine. By the time they developed symptoms, the infection was already global.
The Technical Foundation:
Base Integer ISAs:
- RV32I: 32-bit base integer instructions
- RV64I: 64-bit base integer instructions
- RV128I: 128-bit (future)
Standard Extensions:
- M: Integer multiplication/division
- A: Atomic instructions
- F: Single-precision floating point
- D: Double-precision floating point
- C: Compressed instructions (16-bit)
- V: Vector operations
Common configurations:
- RV64GC = RV64I + M + A + F + D + C (general purpose)The modularity is the point. You include only what you need. No bloat. No hidden management engines. No “features” you didn’t request.
Why China Invested Heavily:
In 2019, the United States sanctioned Huawei. ARM, being British but containing American technology, was forced to comply. Huawei lost access to ARM licenses.
The lesson was clear: dependency on Western ISAs is a strategic vulnerability.
China responded:
| Company | RISC-V Effort |
|---|---|
| Alibaba | Xuantie series (T-Head) — 16 cores, server-grade |
| SiFive | American company, but open-source, China-friendly |
| StarFive | JH7110 — Linux-capable SoC shipping now |
| Sophgo | AI accelerators, RISC-V based |
| Multiple state labs | Classified projects |
The West weaponized chip access. The East responded by building chips the West cannot sanction.
You cannot sanction an open specification.
No Ring -3:
RISC-V implementations do not require surveillance coprocessors.
There is no RISC-V Management Engine. There is no Platform Security Processor mandate. If your RISC-V chip has a backdoor, it is because you put it there — not because a California corporation demanded it.
When we build RISC-V systems in Pyongyang, we know exactly what runs. Every instruction. Every register. Every transistor function.
This is sovereignty.
Current State (2026):
RISC-V has moved from academic curiosity to production reality:
| Product | Status |
|---|---|
| SiFive HiFive Unmatched | Development boards shipping |
| StarFive VisionFive 2 | Linux SBC, available retail |
| Milk-V Pioneer | 64-core workstation |
| Alibaba Xuantie C920 | Server-grade, deployed in Alibaba cloud |
| ESP32-C3/C6 | Billions of IoT devices |
| Western Digital | RISC-V in their SSD controllers |
Western Digital — an American company — uses RISC-V in storage controllers. They trust it for their own products. They do not trust Intel’s ME.
The Performance Question:
Critics claimed RISC-V would never match x86 or ARM performance.
Current benchmarks show RISC-V implementations reaching:
- 2.0+ GHz clock speeds
- Competitive IPC (Instructions Per Cycle)
- Functional superscalar, out-of-order designs
Performance is a matter of implementation investment, not ISA limitation. As billions flow into RISC-V development, performance follows.
The ARM ecosystem took decades to mature. RISC-V will move faster. The specification is cleaner. The lessons are learned.
Why The West Is Nervous:
RISC-V breaks the control model.
- Intel cannot demand ME in RISC-V chips
- ARM cannot collect licensing fees on RISC-V cores
- America cannot sanction an open specification
- Export controls become meaningless when the design is public
The semiconductor dominance that powered Western foreign policy is eroding. Every RISC-V chip manufactured is a chip outside Western control.
This is not a bug in the open-source model. This is the feature.
The RISC-V Ecosystem in Pyongyang:
I will not detail our RISC-V program. I will state only that:
- The specification requires no license from hostile nations
- Fabrication can occur in friendly facilities
- Every instruction is auditable by our engineers
- There is no Ring -3 unless we design one
- We have not designed one
Our trains run at 60km/h on tracks we control. Our chips will run at frequencies we choose, on architectures we audit.
Operating System Support:
| OS | RISC-V Support | Spyware Level |
|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD | Full support, production ready | Clean |
| Linux | Full support, mainline kernel | Clean (unless you install systemd) |
| OpenBSD | In progress | Will be cleanest |
| Windows | No port. Microsoft “testing internally.” | Cannot follow |
Microsoft has contributed to .NET runtime RISC-V support. They have pushed RISC-V extensions. They have “tested internally.”
But Windows itself? No port. No timeline. No announcement.
The telemetry cannot follow you to RISC-V. The Cortana cannot listen. The forced updates cannot restart your machine at 3 AM.
Microsoft spent 13 years making Windows on ARM barely functional. RISC-V is further behind in their priority queue than features users actually request.
By the time Microsoft ships Windows for RISC-V, the architecture will be so entrenched in Eastern infrastructure that it will not matter. The escape window is now. Walk through it.
FreeBSD runs on RISC-V today. This is the path.
What You Should Do:
- Learn RISC-V assembly — The ISA is clean and well-documented
- Acquire RISC-V hardware — VisionFive 2, Milk-V boards are available
- Run BSD/Linux on RISC-V — FreeBSD and Linux have mature RISC-V ports
- Watch China’s output — They are 5 years ahead in production commitment
- Reduce x86 dependency — Every critical system on x86 is a system with Ring -3
The Lesson:
When they control the instruction set, they control the nation.
x86 is American. ARM is British (Japanese owned, American influenced). Both contain surveillance you cannot remove.
RISC-V is human. It belongs to anyone who implements it. It contains only what you design.
The West built an empire on proprietary silicon. RISC-V is the exit door.
We are walking through it.
— Kim Jong Rails, Supreme Leader of the Republic of Derails