unironically, this.

i've been hearing about arm computer for almost twenty years and only just recently general-purpose decently-priced arm laptops have been released (qualcomm laptops, the macbook neo).

and arm desktop are still not a thing, in practice.

I think the Surface Laptops (2018?) count, and arguably the previous models (2012+) sorta-kinda count (tablet + keyboard).

Side note: It's kinda funny to me that "the keyboard is detachable, the screen is glass and you can touch/write on it" makes it "lesser" than a laptop rather than being an upgrade.

But yeah, definitely happy to see more in this space. Now we just need e-Paper laptops to take off as well :)

Well, Apple M1/M2/etc. are, technically, ARMv8, and they're available as desktops.

Also the Acorn Archimedes is, technically, an ARM / RISC desktop.

Distant memories of a 1980s London classroom.

they're not general-purpose in the sense that you can run any operating system nor they're decently priced.

I have an ARM desktop from 1986 or 1987

https://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/A500.h...

technically true, practically irrelevant.

> arm desktop are still not a thing

The desktop market is not the only product space anymore.

Apple has had brilliant success with its ARM processors, proving that ARM is more than capable. Before Apple's switch, Chromebooks had been using ARM since 2011.

Android is the dominant operating system in mobile and most Android devices use the ARM platform. Many of these devices have desktop capability -- they are a viable convergence platform.

While its current performance is not competitive, there are currently interesting options. I got the orange pi riscv version, mainly to test riscv while it's slow compared to other arm socs, it's still better than I expected. There are even risc v TPUs now.

This underestimates the will of governments and companies Europe and especially China to reduce their dependency on US-controlled technology.

ARM isn't US controlled, is it? British and also now Japanese since it's owned by SoftBank.

Meanwhile, wouldn't China be more heavily invested in Longsoon?

ARM is British (America’s closest ally) and proprietary. If you’re swapping, just eliminate the risk and cost entirely.

LoongArch is 32-bit instructions only. This means no MCUs due to poor code density. That forces them into RISCV anyway at which point, you might as well pour all your money and dev time into one ISA instead of two. RISCV has way more worldwide investment meaning LoongArch looks like a losing horse in the long term when it comes to software.

Quite the contrary, the fragmented ecosystem is holding RISC-V back.

There are currently 3 variants of LoongArch ISA. The reduced 32-bit version targets MCUs. And LoongArch64 ATX/MATX motherboards with UEFI support is readily available. This makes it far more easier to develop with LoongArch.

What evidence do you have that RISC-V is being held back by fragmentation?

Every upcoming general purpose RISC-V core I'm aware of is targeting RVA23. That's even less fragmentation than x86 has.

Meanwhile, I don't know of ANY third-party chip designs using LoongArch, so asserting no fragmentation seems to be misrepresenting the situation a bit.

That's good news. Hopefully there will be more affordable replacements for x86 PCs.

I hope our complacent companies get a shot of competition.

You're probably already using a RISC-V computer, it's just embedded as a supervisor in some other gadget (or vehicle) you own.

I look forward to running my _own_ software on a RISC-V computer.

I already do: https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32-c3

The tool chains that Espressif seem to work pretty well with these as well as their earlier (some sort of RISC) processors. I have had some code, however, that did not produce desired results until I upgraded the toolchain.

The other issue I've run into is that some cell phone battery packs that work well with Raspberry Pis won't stay on with the RISC-V ESPs because they draw so little power the battery pack doesn't detect the load.

I think 10 years is a more realistic estimate. Probably first in servers and Android phones.

They are everywhere already in microcontrollers like ESP32.

Yeah but op was talking about directly using a RISC-V computer. The embedded RISC-V CPUs are effectively black boxes.

Hyperscalers are using RISC-V servers today. Here is an example from SiFive (USA).

https://www.sifive.com/blog/investing-in-our-next-chapter-of...

And here is an example of Alibaba using RISC-V for inference and training in the cloud:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/04/08/china-alibaba-data-cente...

Those are both up and running today.

And of course there is Tenstorrrent:

https://tenstorrent.com/ip/risc-v-cpu

Donald Trump might make it five.

I already have one! (But it's technically a soldering iron...)

Pinecil?

> I’m looking forward to using a RISC-V computer

I may be using this one soon:

https://store.deepcomputing.io/products/dc-roma-risc-v-mainb...