Comment by LeFantome

> China was investing heavily in RISC-V, which implies that either they're going to have to settle for permanently crippled perf

Not quite. RISC-V application class processors are a new development. They are starting from behind but they are improving faster than the competition. The SpacemiT K3 is 4 times faster than the K1 for example. The Alibaba C950 will be about Apple M1 level performance. And even faster designs are already in the works.

RISC-V is not “permenantly crippled”. It will catch up and maybe surpass ARM. It is more an economy of scale issue than anything.