Home / News & Events / RISC-V: Open-Source ISA for Custom Chips — World Economic Forum

RISC-V: Open-Source ISA for Custom Chips — World Economic Forum

28 May 2026

Inside every device you use, an ‘instruction set architecture’ (ISA) sits at the boundary between hardware and software, translating code into operations that microchips can execute. Without an ISA, nothing computes — not your smartphone, not a data-centre supercomputer.

Most ISAs are proprietary and licensed, which adds cost and limits how freely a chip designer can customise silicon for a specific workload. RISC-V is different: an open-source ISA that is free to use, designed from the start to be extended, and already shipping in billions of devices worldwide. The World Economic Forum’s short explainer shows how it works and why an open hardware standard matters as digitalisation and electrification accelerate the demand for custom chips.

The same forces — geopolitics, the energy transition and the race for compute — are also reshaping the critical minerals and metals supply chains that all of this hardware depends on. A related World Economic Forum report maps those materials across value chains and offers guidance for companies navigating the shift: https://ow.ly/AJ9e50YW3RK

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About Susan Mckenzie

Susan has been providing administration and consultation services on various businesses for several years. She graduated from Western Washington University with a bachelor degree in International Business. She is now a Vice-President, Global Administration at World Certification Institute - WCI. She has a passion for learning and personal / professional development. Love doing yoga to keep fit and stay healthy.

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