GoKawiilNvidia outlines RISC-V requirements for CUDA support at Hot Chips 2026
Nvidia is working to extend CUDA compatibility beyond x86-64 and aarch64 to RISC-V CPUs, according to a Hot Chips 2026 presentation. The company laid out strict hardware requirements, including RVA23 compliance, adherence to RISC-V server SoC and platform specs, ACPI support, and PCIe coherency, to ensure CUDA runs efficiently rather than falling back on lowest-common-denominator code.
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Bringing CUDA to RISC-V would let a new class of server CPUs feed Nvidia GPUs, potentially expanding RISC-V's reach into high-performance AI and data center computing. The strict requirements also signal that RISC-V's ecosystem, including ACPI and RAS features, has matured enough to meet enterprise-grade demands only recently, which could accelerate adoption in server hardware.
- Nvidia is evaluating RISC-V as a third CPU architecture for CUDA, alongside x86-64 and aarch64.
- Requirements include RVA23 compliance, server SoC/platform specs, ACPI support, and PCIe coherency for efficient GPU-CPU data handling.
- RISC-V's 2025 ACPI addition and ratified BRS specification helped clear a major obstacle for Nvidia's software porting efforts.
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Published there as: “Hot Chips 2026: CUDA Targets RISC-V – By Chester Lam”
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