Published September 22, 2025 | Version v1
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From Lock-in to Leverage – How RISC-V Diffusion Could Rebalance AI Hardware Geopolitics

Authors/Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Description

The potential of emerging chip design challengers to redistribute technological and geopolitical power is a significant shift that the audience should be aware of. This paper empirically explains how the diffusion of RISC-V could lead to a techno-economic paradigm shift away from CUDA and GPUs, particularly in terms of the distributional effects it will have on U.S. control, China's adoption, and European technological sovereignty. Furthermore, an open ISA will lead from a neorealistic and liberal institutionalist perspective to portability, resulting in lower switching costs, a broader ecosystem, and a declining capacity for weaponized interdependence, as well as shifting leverage away from proprietary nodes based on standards.

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