Arm vs. RISC-V: Same DNA, Different Flight Paths

By Allyson Klein, TechArena | October 21, 2025

With all the focus on AI acceleration and the dizzying pace of data center GPU integration grabbing today’s headlines, another trend in compute innovation is perhaps missing its time in the spotlight—the evolution of the role of CPU architectures within compute platforms and how alternatives are gaining traction in the market. This week, the RISC-V community gathers for its annual Summit. With the acceleration of silicon advancement in 2025, we wanted to take a deeper look at the state of CPU alternatives, especially within the realm of licensed CPU designs.

We have recently fielded many questions on Arm’s ascendency across market deployments and the market traction for RISC-V, and we wanted to take a deeper look at these two architectures. When you zoom out far enough, Arm and RISC-V look like cousins—both lean, modular RISC designs with the potential to power everything from tiny sensors to hyperscale racks. But if you’re architecting a system for next year’s deployment (or signing a PO for racks next quarter), the two aren’t close to interchangeable. So, what happened in the market to scale Arm to strong positions in every compute market segment, and how should we view RISC-V’s future across the same landscape?

The TechArena team went on a deep dive to investigate base architecture, licensing, software gravity, and the million-dollar question: “Do the hyperscalers actually trust it?” We also looked at traction across devices, industrial, and data center deployments. Finally, we prognosticated on curveballs that could shift the board ahead.

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