RISC‑V 101 — what is it and why Canonical cares

April 10, 2026
aisecurityhardwareopen-source
Detailed view of an engineer assembling a circuit board with a screwdriver.
Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels

What is RISC‑V?

RISC‑V is an open instruction set architecture — a blueprint, not a chip. It started in 2010 and is stewarded by RISC‑V International, and it lets anyone design CPUs without paying into a closed ecosystem. Think Arm or x86_64, but permissive, modular and designed to be extended. Want to add a custom instruction for an accelerator or trim the ISA for ultra‑low power? Go ahead. That freedom is the point.

Why Canonical is paying attention

Canonical says the RISC‑V landscape is shifting from deeply embedded use to platforms that developers can actually buy and run Linux on. The company expects more development boards supporting the RVA23 profile to appear in 2026. Why does that matter? Because an open ISA changes the economics of hardware: new business models, fewer gatekeepers, more sovereignty. It’s about control — who owns the silicon stack and who gets to innovate on top of it.

Industry momentum and caveats

It has been reported that big names are already dipping toes into RISC‑V: Qualcomm and NVIDIA reportedly use RISC‑V cores internally, and it has been reported that Google has shipped OpenTitan-based production silicon in Chromebooks and is using it in data centers. Those moves are proof points, but they don’t magically erase engineering work. Extensibility is powerful, yes — but it can also fragment software unless profiles and conventions hold. Canonical’s push to support RISC‑V in Ubuntu is a practical answer: if the distro runs reliably, developers can start betting on the hardware.

Software maturity — ready yet?

So, will your apps run? The software ecosystem is getting there. Kernel support, toolchains and packaging are maturing, and profiles like RVA23 help tame the variability. Still, expect hairier edges than on x86 or Arm for a while. The emotional center of this story is simple: hardware freedom feels like a fresh breeze after years of vendor lock‑in. Canonical is positioning Ubuntu to be ready when that breeze turns into a full‑blown wind.

Sources: ubuntu.com, Hacker News