China is increasingly relying on its own chips to offset strict American export regulations, and the new HX-C2000 TC2 is a good example of this. This processor includes IBM OpenPower: an alternative open architecture that stands alongside x86.

The Chinese Hexin Technology is testing the HX C2000 TC2. This is a test chip and the second iteration of the HX-C2000 CPU, which the company plans to bring to market soon. The chip is characterized by the fact that it uses an open RISC architecture: IBM OpenPower. OpenPower, as the name suggests, is open source and can be viewed as a competitor to RISC-V.

The architecture stands alongside ARM and x86. The Hexin team figured out IBM’s design methods and the result is the HX C2000. Thanks to its open architecture, the CPU itself is not vulnerable to Western sanctions. The exact details and performance of the new chip are less clear. Furthermore, design and architecture are not the only hurdles for Chinese chipmakers.

Compatibility and manufacturing

Manufacturing will be a key challenge because the machinery needed to make advanced chips is also under U.S. sanctions. If Hexin can get around this and deliver a high-performance chip at scale with the HX C2000, the compatibility issue still remains. Most software is developed for x86 and to a lesser extent ARM. Optimizations for RISC and OpenPower are very limited.

Developments show that China is not standing still. At first it is difficult to compete with Western chips, but the research and development machinery in the Far East is in full swing. What is now a test chip may one day develop into a powerful alternative to existing processors.