Meta and Qualcomm push RISC-V market share towards 25%
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.
RISC-V market share: what 25% really means
If SHD’s “greater than 25%” number is confirmed in the way it’s being paraphrased, it will likely reflect unit penetration across broad embedded/edge markets rather than desktop or server CPUs. Omdia previously forecast that RISC-V processors could reach roughly a quarter of the global processor market by 2030, driven especially by automotive growth and the pull from AI-enabled edge devices.
There’s also a separate “value” lens: Reuters Breakingviews cited SHD figures suggesting chips with RISC-V cores represented about $52 billion of sales in 2024, or 10.4% market penetration, underlining how sensitive the headline percentage is to definitions (units vs revenue, and “contains a core” vs “is a RISC-V CPU”).
RISC-V market share drivers: Meta and Qualcomm
Meta’s interest is straightforward: controlling more of its AI compute bill. Reuters reported that Meta began testing an in-house AI training chip as part of its MTIA effort, following earlier in-house inference deployments for recommendation workloads. Separately, trade press has reported Meta’s moves to bolster talent and IP around RISC-V-based accelerator development.
Qualcomm, meanwhile, has been laying track both tactically and strategically. Qualcomm’s plan to develop RISC-V CPU cores alongside its Arm-based Oryon line is closely tied to Ventana’s high-core-count, vector-capable chiplet designs aimed at datacentre-class and enterprise use cases.
The upshot: even if “25%” mostly reflects embedded volume today, the significance is that large buyers are now treating RISC-V as a serious long-term option up the stack — especially in edge AI and custom silicon, where ISA flexibility and supply-chain leverage matter.
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