Fourth vendor actually! Centaur just announced a new core for the server market and even AVX-512 support.

See this https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/3099/centaur-unveils-its-new-...

Zhaoxin - is a design licenses from Via, the maker of Centaur

Awesome! And some tensor cores for inference, neat!

Honestly, wouldn't be surprised to see more vendors spring up out of nowhere soon. The base patents are about to expire on x86_64. Everyone keeps saying that Apple is going to release an ARM laptop, but IMO a homegrown x86_64 chip is way more likely.

Apple or no Apple the Snapdragon 8cx is looking good! https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-s-Snapdragon-8cx-amas...

Does Apple have any experience making x86_64 processors? Do they even have the license to do so?

If the parents are expired, they don't need a license. The base patents are expiring very very soon (ie. months).

Interesting proposition, something I haven't read anyone put forward before.

But Apple Scaling their current High Performance ARM design using HPC Node and higher Clock speed is likely much easier than doing a high performance x86 design.

Even Amazon decided to use ARM for their Server platform, to me I think ARM has won the game.

Apple's chip teams have worked on other ISAs before, and there's tons of ex Transmeta folk around the bay area of you need more x86 experience.

And Amazon AFAIK just cleaned up an existing ARM uarch sort of like Intrinsity's expertise. I don't think they have the experience needed to make their own high perf uarch, whether it be ARM or x86.

Same vendor actually :)

Do they retain the legal agreements Via had for x86 usage?

I assume so, but the contracts are private. It certainly looks like the world wide license that Via would have had was split into 'China' and 'not China', hence how difficult these chips are to get a hold of. That being said, it's pretty much impossible to know for sure.

For those who don't know, Zhaoxin _never_ released any x86 product. Over the last 10? years their only output have been laughable roadmaps listing non existing processors.

I've gotten the sense that they're using them, you just can't buy them on the open market. The Chinese government has a ton of uses for passable x86 chips that they control the masks of and could easily consume the whole production line.

Leonove ThinkPads with Zhaoxin prosessors have been spotted in China. https://imgur.com/a/kIK8bmw

This is Zhaoxin press event photo.

seriously?

They did sell Lenovo computers with renamed VIA Nano processors few years ago while claiming "Zhaoxin's home-grown x86 CPU is completely designed from the ground up within China."

How close to governmental organizations is it?

It is a direct partnership with the Shaghai Municipal Government.

Hard pass then.

Pretty sure these aren't meant for us.

Probably building them so they don't have to use American parts. What's funny is that everyone claims that no one wants decoupling. While at the same time, everyone is also taking measures which are at once, very rational, and lead inevitably to a decoupled world.

It has more to do with state grants, which in China are quite big

And government tech grants are very rational. We give them out in the US as well. Governments have their goals. I can understand that.

I'm just saying that the amalgamation of rational actions on the part of everyone involved has the potential to lead us to the decoupled world that everyone claims they don't want.

Of course China should fund their chip industry. It's common sense. Long term, they should probably be using their own chips. Also common sense. But imagine the same common sense being applied across the economies of all great nations in every critical sector. Think about where such measures lead in terms of global trade.

Maybe it's good? Not saying it's a definite bad thing. I'm a dad, when my kids were younger, if they couldn't get along I made them take their things and go back to their rooms. I have to admit, that made for a much more peaceful house. I'm just saying that it's probably better for the development of the children for them to peacefully play together.

Which they are forced to give. If US companies stop selling components to China, it’s back to the stone age for them.

Hardly. The US is still a large trade partner for China, and an immediate stop will certainly trigger a domestic crisis, but they aren't really that dependent on the US. I'm not aware of a single item that only the US exclusively produces.

OTH China invests 95% of GDP on infrastructure (compared to 1.5% in the US), creating a huge domestic market. And a a stop of trade with the US will also mean a stop of China keeping the dollar strong - which they do because their currency is pegged to the dollar. They won't have a reason to continue this practice without trade with the US.

*9% of GDP for China of course, not 95%!

Iran is pretty far away from the stone age, despite US sanctions. If the components can't be sold legally, they can still be smuggled. The added inefficiency would of course drive prices up, but it wouldn't be quite as disastrous as you seem to believe.