Jan. 08, 2026 –
By Brian Tristam Williams, eeNews Europe
Talk of RISC-V hitting 25% market penetration has been doing the rounds this week, with recent moves by Meta and Qualcomm often cited as evidence that the instruction set is moving beyond hobbyist boards and low-end microcontrollers.
What’s actually being claimed is more nuanced. RISC-V International points to SHD Group research expected to be discussed at the RISC-V Summit North America — but also notes it is not yet clear whether the 25% figure refers to all silicon microprocessors, or only the markets where RISC-V already has meaningful traction.
For background, as previously reported when we looked at the rise of RISC-V, the architecture’s appeal is less about “free chips” than a royalty-free, open standard ISA that companies can implement and extend without being locked into a single licensor.