Send Link mailing list submissions to
[email protected]
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[email protected]
You can reach the person managing the list at
[email protected]
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Link digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Australia's 5G network to get AI overhaul (Stephen Loosley)
2. Alibaba launch server-grade RISC-V CPU, China throws weight
behind ISA (Stephen Loosley)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:24:46 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Australia's 5G network to get AI overhaul
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Australia's 5G network to get AI overhaul, as Telstra lays groundwork for 6G
By Sarah Swain 5:13pm Mar 9, 2025
https://www.9news.com.au/national/telstra-ai-6g-australias-network-to-get-ai-overhaul-as-telstra-lays-groundwork/
[Photo caption: Text messages will also soon work in every corner of the
country, thanks to deals with Elon Musk's Starlink. (AAP) ]
"We're going to make our 5G network the most advanced and the most resilient in
the country," Channa Seneviratne, Telstra technology engagement advancement
executive, said.
The telco claims speeds will improve first, and soon after, artificial
intelligence will follow, which will help Telstra predict and improve
connections for customers when they need it, and lay the foundation for the
arrival of 6G.
"Just like 4G got better over time, 5G will get better, faster, more efficient.
So we can expect better things from the existing networks as it prepares for
what's to come." technology expert Trevor Long said.
A 6G network isn't expected to be rolled out until about 2030.
How fast it will be and the standard it has to meet is still being discussed by
world leaders.
"In planning for the future, the government will draw on lessons from the
experience of the 3G switchover," federal Communications Minister Michelle
Rowland said.
"The government and industry will continue to work collaboratively to protect
the public interest."
"You'll see robots talking to other robots and vehicles talking to wearables.
It's going to be massive," Seneviratne said.
The good news is, you won't have to wait for 6G to send a text from any corner
of Australia.
Right now, there's a big blackspot in the middle of the country.
But telcos are already signing deals with satellite companies like Starlink so
you can make a call or get an SMS from anywhere you can see the sky.
"We will see, probably within two years, satellite communication working on our
phones anywhere in Australia - and that's the big next step," Long said.
"That's a game-changer, and this is all part of that future investment,"
Seneviratne said.
--
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:51:17 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Alibaba launch server-grade RISC-V CPU, China throws
weight behind ISA
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
As Alibaba launches server-grade RISC-V CPU, Beijing throws its weight behind
ISA
A major policy directive strongly suggesting use of the royalty-free
architecture is apparently imminent
By Simon Sharwood Wed 5 Mar 2025
https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/05/china_alibaba_risc_v_c930/
The permissively licensed RISC-V instruction set architecture appears to be
gaining significant momentum in China.
One sign of enthusiasm for the royalty-free ISA came late last week when an
outfit named XuanTie, which is part of Alibaba?s DAMO Academy R&D operation,
announced a C930 CPU design that's available to license for system-on-chip
makers.
https://www.xrvm.cn/product/xuantie/C930
The CPU core is pitched as the ideal brains for servers, PCs, and autonomous
cars.
XuanTie, which shares some of its RISC-V CPU cores as open source, said its
C930 can be used to build ?a 64-bit high-performance multi-core processor that
uses a superscalar, out-of-order execution, 6-decode width, and 16-stage
pipeline microarchitecture.?
The core is apparently compatible with the RISC-V RVA23 profile family, and
supports ISA extensions such as Vector, Crypto, Zacas, Zama16b, Smmtt, CoVE,
RAS, AIA, and Zalasr.
RVA23 compatibility matters because it?s a cornerstone of the RISC-V ecosystem,
ratified last year, and among other things specifies hypervisor extensions that
are all-but-essential for a processor intended for deployment in servers,
clouds, or other large-scale scenarios where the ability to run virtual
machines is table stakes.
By being RVA23 ready, the C930 meets a baseline expected of modern RISC-V
systems.
Machine translation of XuanTie?s product blurb produces the following
description: ?C930 uses advanced micro-architecture technology to achieve high
performance, including TAGE-based branch prediction algorithm, Private L2
Cache, adjustable data prefetch mechanism, etc. C930 Specint2006 performance
score exceeds 15/GHz.?
We're told "a typical single cluster configuration supports four cores,?
meaning you can't go licensing the C930 for a quad-core processor, and that a
64KB instruction cache, 64KB data cache, and 1MB L2 cache are all ?typical? and
configurable.
The included vector unit supports the RISC-V Vector 1.0 extension, handles
256-bit vector registers, and supports
FP16/BF16/FP32/FP64/INT8/INT16/INT32/INT64.
Here?s a look at a diagram depicting the architecture of a C930-based
system-on-chip...
* XuanTie C930 processor die diagram
* XuanTie's C930 processor diagram ... Click to enlarge
Chinese media report that at the conference where the XuanTie C930 was
launched, senior Alibaba Cloud execs predicted RISC-V will become a mainstream
cloud architecture in five to eight years.
Xi we go, Xi we go
According to a Tuesday report from Reuters, Beijing is close to releasing a
policy that that could make that prediction real.
The newswire reported that eight Chinese government bodies are working on
?guidance? that will encourage widespread use of RISC-V throughout China.
Such guidance would be consistent China?s 2024 call for local orgs to stop
buying American silicon and shop locally instead.
After that suggestion, Chinese chipmaker Loongson scored a ten thousand-PC
pilot in Chinese schools, and a place on China?s space station. Lenovo backed
Loongson by porting its hyperconverged infrastructure stack to the company?s
distinctive processor architecture.
Giant telco China Mobile advised its future server procurement plans would
require some machines using processors that employ the C86 architecture, a
Chinese x86 variant.
A new edict from Beijing could perhaps accelerate similar purchasing plans.
US adds Chinese RISC-V player that TSMC suspected of helping build Huawei GPUs
to risky company register
First all-Indian chips to debut this year, 25 more local designs in the works
RISC-V is making moves, but it has work to do if it wants to hit the mainstream
Faulty instructions in Alibaba's T-Head C910 RISC-V CPUs blow away all security
Chinese orgs have already expressed strong interest in RISC-V without notable
results.
In 2021, China?s Academy of Sciences promised to release new RISC-V designs
every six months. While it didn?t meet that target, in February 2025 the
Academy teased a potentially powerful RISC-V design.
Middle Kingdom search giant Baidu explored datacenter-grade RISC-V chips in
2023. In the same year, Alibaba expressed a desire to create RISC-V chips
capable of powering everything from wearable devices to clouds.
Results of those efforts are not yet obvious, and we?ve never heard of a
Chinese RISC-V processor delivering eye-catching performance, as was the case
last year when Alibaba Cloud?s Yitian 710 CPU was rated the fastest Arm chip
available in any hyperscale cloud.
Alibaba achieved that result just a few years after starting work on its own
designs. Perhaps it could do the same with RISC-V, although the company will
need to improve on its past efforts that in August 2024 were found to have
serious security flaws.
China?s RISC-V efforts are taking place as the USA leads efforts to prevent the
transfer of advanced tech to the Middle Kingdom, largely on national security
grounds.
US lawmakers are already worried that RISC-V?s license, which allows developers
to use the architecture for free, means Chinese firms can use IP created in
America to develop advanced tech.
--
------------------------------
Subject: Digest Footer
_______________________________________________
Link mailing list
[email protected]
https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
------------------------------
End of Link Digest, Vol 388, Issue 10
*************************************
