Interconnect Design Engineer

SiFive drives RISC-V into the data center with BigSky server platform. by Paul Lilly - Monday, August 24, 2026, 12:23 PM EDT SiFive introduced its BigSky SF-2U870 development platform today at Hot Chips 2026, delivering the first rackable 2U enterprise server driven by RISC-V hardware. Designed specifically for hyperscalers, chipmakers, and software vendors, the platform gives engineering teams a turnkey physical system to port enterprise code, profile workloads, and validate custom silicon designs before committing to full-scale production runs. Video Muted "Ultimately, we are focused on enabling customers to meaningfully optimize the TCO of their custom SoC solutions with SiFive IP. RISC-V in the datacenter isn't a distant aspiration any more, it is happening right now, and SiFive is leading the way," said Patrick Little, Chairman and CEO at SiFive. Inside, the 2U chassis packs 32 of SiFive's P870-D cores operating at 2GHz, along with 256GB of DDR5-5600 memory, a 3.84TB U.2 NVMe drive, 10/25Gbps OCP 3.0 networking, and 64 total lanes of PCIe Gen 5 x16 expansion. That high-speed I/O leaves room for double-wide GPUs and specialized hardware accelerators, and SiFive says the system is fully compliant with the RVA23 standard. What about software compatibility? This has long been a major hurdle for RISC-V server adoption, which gets a big boost with this release. BigSky supports standard enterprise operating systems right out of the box, including Canonical Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 (RHEL 10). "At Canonical, we are committed to driving open-source innovation from developer environments to the datacenter core," said Gordan Markuš, Director of Silicon Alliances at Canonical. "Out-of-the-box support for RVA23 and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS on SiFive's BigSky datacenter development platform provides the enterprise software foundation required to accelerate AI and cloud-native workloads on RISC-V. We are proud to collaborate with SiFive, and this seamless integration ensures our mutual customers can confidently port enterprise workloads and accelerate their transition to RISC-V in the datacenter today." SiFive also teamed up with NVIDIA to port CUDA to its RISC-V hardware and integrate NVLink Fusion into its future platforms, the company said. SiFive says its platforms are available immediately in limited production quantities, with "demand outpacing supply," currently. Paul is a seasoned geek who cut this teeth on the Commodore 64. When he's not geeking out to tech, he's out riding his Harley and collecting stray cats.

SiFive Brings RISC-V to Rackable Servers with BigSky Platform. August 24, 2026 Press play to listen to this content SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 24, 2026 - SiFive today, at an event coinciding with Hot Chips, introduced the SiFive BigSky SF-2U870 datacenter development platform. In collaboration with hyperscaler customers and leading ecosystem partners, SiFive has delivered the world's first enterprise-grade, rackable 2U RISC-V server. The platform will be demonstrated running a variety of server workloads at the event, and is built specifically for customers to accelerate RISC-V datacenter software porting, workload optimization, and system validation. This enables customers, partners and SiFive to accelerate the deployment of production-grade RISC-V solutions for the datacenter. Lead customers are currently running workloads on deployed BigSky systems, including hyperscaler, software, and major SoC hardware leaders. "SiFive is closely collaborating with industry leaders to accelerate deployment of RISC-V in the datacenter. With BigSky, we have delivered a powerful turnkey server platform designed to accelerate development of customer datacenter workloads and software on the RISC-V open standard," said Patrick Little, Chairman and CEO, SiFive. "Ultimately, we are focused on enabling customers to meaningfully optimize the TCO of their custom SoC solutions with SiFive IP. RISC-V in the datacenter isn't a distant aspiration any more, it is happening right now, and SiFive is leading the way." "SiFive's new development servers mark a major turning point in the industry. The amount of datacenter software they already have up and running clearly demonstrates just how far industry support for RISC-V has come in a remarkably short period of time," said Patrick Kennedy, President, Axautik Group/ServeTheHome. Accelerating the Open Ecosystem with Broad Industry Support Fully compliant with the RVA23 standard, the BigSky SF-2U870 platform eliminates the need for complex custom porting, enabling seamless, out-of-the-box deployment of enterprise software environments. The platform features out-of-the-box support for standard enterprise-grade Linux releases, such as Canonical Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Red Hat RHEL10. SiFive is working with NVIDIA to port CUDA to SiFive based RISC-V hardware and integrate NVLink Fusion into future SiFive platforms. Demonstrating this progress, SiFive now has CUDA running on the P870-D-powered BigSky datacenter development platform. By serving as the head node for modern LLM workloads on NVIDIA GPUs, this platform delivers a capability never before seen on RISC-V hardware. To support this milestone for the RISC-V architecture, industry leaders Canonical and Red Hat offered the following statements: "At Canonical, we are committed to driving open-source innovation from developer environments to the datacenter core," said Gordan Markuš, Director of Silicon Alliances at Canonical. "Out-of-the-box RVA23 support for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS on SiFive's BigSky datacenter development platform provides the enterprise software foundation required to accelerate AI and cloud-native workloads on RISC-V. We are proud to collaborate with SiFive, and this seamless integration ensures our mutual customers can confidently port enterprise workloads and accelerate their transition to RISC-V in the datacenter today." "Getting RHEL 10 running on SiFive's BigSky platform isn't just a validation exercise, it's proof that we're moving from the 'theoretical' phase into production-grade reality. For our enterprise customers, the real win here isn't just performance metrics; it's the architectural flexibility RISC-V offers without sacrificing the stability and software ecosystem they rely on," said Brian "Redbeard" Harrington, Strategist, CTO Organization, Red Hat. "Through the RISE project, we've been working to ensure that when we say RISC-V is ready for the datacenter, we mean it. We're excited to be partnering with SiFive to demonstrate that open standards can absolutely deliver the rigorous performance and reliability the modern datacenter demands." Key Platform Specifications The SiFive BigSky SF-2U870 is designed explicitly for advanced software porting, workload tuning, and validation testing to foster ecosystem enablement. Hardware specifications include: * 32 P870-D cores operating at 2.0GHz * 256GB DDR5-5600 memory * 4x PCIe Gen5 x16 (64 lanes total) and PCIe Gen3 x4 * Support for x16 double-wide GPU * 3.84 TB Data SSD U.2 NVME * 10/25Gb OCP 3.0 NIC The platforms are available today and currently being produced in limited quantities to drive strategic development opportunities, with demand outpacing supply. Interested parties should contact SiFive sales for more information. About SiFive As the pioneers who founded RISC-V, SiFive is transforming the future of computing by bringing the power and flexibility of RISC-V to the world. SiFive's market-leading IP provides the blueprint for high-performance, customizable, and energy-efficient processor cores across the entire computing spectrum, from the intelligent edge to the most advanced AI data centers. SiFive achieved record growth in 2025 and its IP is featured in more than 500 designs, with over 10 billion cores shipped to date, SiFive is the trusted IP partner for the world's most innovative technology companies. Scientists running large simulations can end up with terabytes of data that then has to... Jensen Huang believes NVIDIA's chips are becoming much more than expensive pieces of hardware. As... Prior to the June International Supercomputing Conference, ISC High Performance 2026, in Hamburg, Germany, Sean... WEKA has introduced two new AI infrastructure products: NeuralMesh 6, which the company calls its... Nvidia is primarily known as a hardware company thanks to the wild success of its... The rise of an GPU-less supercomputer called LineShine on the TOP500 list last week has...

SiFive has launched the Performance P570 Gen 3, a high-performance RISC-V processor core targeting edge AI, consumer and commercial IoT applications. The chip delivers 13% better performance on traditional CPU workloads with 13% lower power consumption compared to the P550 Gen 1, whilst AI workloads see up to 21 times improvement. The P570 Gen 3 features a 3-wide, 13-stage out-of-order superscalar pipeline and an upgraded 128-bit vector engine. It fully supports the RVA23 profile, backed by Google, Red Hat and Canonical, ensuring compatibility with mainstream operating systems including Android and Linux. The processor is available today and scales up to 16 cores. SiFive also updated the P550 Gen 3 for customers requiring smaller area budgets without vector capabilities.