Alibaba is working to make its Apsara cloud OS compatible with a variety of architectures in an effort to future-proof it.
Alibaba started as an online marketplace, but has grown to be one of the biggest companies in the world. The company is a leader in AI, e-commerce and, increasingly, the cloud market.
The company is working on its Apsara cloud OS, and is learning from the challenges its fellow Chinese firms have faced. Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi have all experienced setbacks as a result of sanctions by the US government and its allies. Huawei, in particular, has struggled due to being cut off from the semiconductors it relied on for its products.
Alibaba’s solution is to make sure Apsara can work on a variety of chip architectures, ensuring no geopolitical factors negatively impact the OS or the company’s plans. According to TechCrunch, Alibaba is building support for x86, Arm and RISC-V into Aspara.
The addition of RISC-V is particularly interesting, as it is an open source architecture that anyone is free to use. There are no fees associated with using it, and it is beyond the reach of US sanctions. As a result, RISC-V is growing in popularity among Chinese companies, offering them a measure of security they do not have with other options.
If RISC-V continues to gain widespread use, other companies will likely be forced to support it too.