China is actively promoting RISC-V. Why should India also adopt RISC-V?

Date: 15-06-2026

While China’s aggressive push for RISC-V is largely a defensive strategy to bypass Western sanctions and export controls on semiconductor technology, India’s adoption of RISC-V represents a massive proactive opportunity.

Just as India leveraged open-source software (like Linux and Android) to build its global IT powerhouse, adopting RISC-V—the “Linux of hardware”—can help India build a sovereign, world-class semiconductor ecosystem.

Here is why India must adopt and push for RISC-V:

1. Strategic Autonomy and Supply Chain Security

Currently, the global processor market is a duopoly dominated by x86 (Intel/AMD) and ARM (used in almost all smartphones). Both are proprietary, require expensive licensing fees, and are subject to the geopolitical export controls of the US and UK.

• By adopting RISC-V (an open-standard Instruction Set Architecture), India can build its own processors without relying on foreign IP that could theoretically be restricted during geopolitical crises.
• RISC-V International is headquartered in Switzerland, providing a geopolitically neutral ground that ensures the standard remains open and immune to single-nation sanctions.

2. Perfect Catalyst for the “India Semiconductor Mission” (ISM)

India is currently trying to build a semiconductor manufacturing and design ecosystem from scratch. Competing directly with entrenched x86 and ARM ecosystems is nearly impossible for a newcomer.

• RISC-V lowers the barrier to entry. Because it is royalty-free and modular, Indian fabless startups can design chips for specific niches (IoT, wearables, automotive, smart meters) without paying millions in upfront licensing fees to ARM.
• This perfectly aligns with the government’s push to make India a global hub for semiconductor design.

3. Leveraging India’s Massive VLSI Talent Pool

India already has one of the largest pools of semiconductor design and VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integration) engineers in the world. However, most of this talent currently works for foreign MNCs designing ARM or x86 chips.

• By focusing on RISC-V, India can transition its workforce from service providers (designing chips for foreign companies) to IP creators (building indigenous processors).
• India is already doing this: IIT Madras has developed the “Shakti” family of RISC-V microprocessors, and startups are already building commercial products around them.

4. Customization for India-Specific Problems

RISC-V is not just an ISA; it is highly extensible. India has unique technological requirements—from running massive Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) like Aadhaar and UPI, to optimizing for agriculture, space tech (ISRO), and defense.

• With RISC-V, Indian engineers can add custom instructions to the processor to create domain-specific accelerators.
• For example, custom hardware accelerators can be built specifically for AI at the edge, or for cryptographic operations required in secure communications and blockchain infrastructure, without being constrained by the rigid architectures of ARM or Intel.

5. National Security and “Trusted Hardware”

For critical sectors like defense, nuclear energy, space, and national security grids, relying on foreign proprietary hardware is a massive risk due to the potential for hardware backdoors.

• Because RISC-V is open-source, the hardware description language (HDL) code can be rigorously audited by Indian security agencies.
• India can build “trusted processors” for its military and critical infrastructure, ensuring there are no hidden vulnerabilities or backdoors—a concept highly valued in the cybersecurity and blockchain communities.

6. Boosting the Startup and MSME Ecosystem

For hardware startups and MSMEs in India, the cost of ARM licenses is a major bottleneck. The royalty-free nature of RISC-V democratizes hardware innovation.

• A two-person software startup (like those in the blockchain or Web3 space) can theoretically design a custom, highly secure, application-specific microcontroller using RISC-V, get it fabricated, and deploy it without paying licensing royalties. This will trigger a hardware startup boom similar to the software startup boom India saw in the 2010s.

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Summary

China is pushing RISC-V because they have to in order to survive tech sanctions. India should push RISC-V because it is the smartest strategic move to achieve Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) in electronics. By embracing open-source silicon, India can bypass the monopolies of the past and position itself as a primary architect of the future computing landscape.

How Supply Chain Attacks work at the Hardware Level

To understand how supply chain attacks work at the hardware level, we have to look at the fundamental difference between proprietary architectures (x86/ARM) and open-source architectures (RISC-V).

In the cybersecurity world, there is a golden rule: “Never trust a black box.”

When a nation or a company buys an x86 or ARM processor, they are buying a black box. They know what it does on the outside, but they have absolutely no idea what is happening on the inside. RISC-V, on the other hand, is a “glass box.”

Here is exactly how x86 and ARM can be weaponized for supply chain attacks, and why RISC-V fundamentally breaks this attack vector.

Part 1: How x86 and ARM Enable Supply Chain Attacks

When you use a proprietary processor, you are forced to trust the vendor (Intel, AMD, or ARM) and, by extension, the government that has jurisdiction over that vendor (primarily the US and UK). This creates three massive attack vectors:

1. The “Shadow Processor” Problem (Intel ME & ARM TrustZone)

Modern x86 and ARM chips do not just have one brain; they have a “shadow brain” inside them.

• In Intel chips, this is the Intel Management Engine (ME). In AMD, it’s the Platform Security Processor (PSP). In ARM, it’s TrustZone.
• These are entirely separate, hidden microcontrollers embedded inside the main CPU. They run their own proprietary operating systems, have direct access to the network card and memory, and boot up before the main operating system (like Windows or Linux) even starts.
• The Attack: Because the code running on these shadow processors is 100% closed-source and encrypted, no independent security researcher can audit it. If a state actor wanted to create a hardware backdoor, they could coerce the chip manufacturer to insert a silent exploit into the Intel ME. This backdoor could silently siphon encryption keys, log keystrokes, or act as an un-killable remote access tool, completely invisible to the host OS and antivirus software.

2. The Microcode “Trojan Horse”

Processors don’t just execute machine code; they use microcode to translate complex instructions into physical hardware signals.

• In x86, microcode is updated via “microcode patches” pushed by Intel/AMD to the OS.
• The Attack: Microcode is distributed as a closed-source binary blob. The operating system blindly loads it into the CPU. A malicious or coerced microcode update could subtly alter how the CPU handles cryptographic operations (like AES encryption), intentionally weakening the math so a foreign intelligence agency can decrypt the nation’s secure communications. Because it’s closed-source, the victim nation would never know their hardware was sabotaged.

3. The Opaque IP Licensing Trap (ARM)

When a company (like Apple or Samsung) designs a chip, they don’t write the core architecture from scratch; they license the “IP core” from ARM.

• ARM delivers this IP as a “black box” RTL (Register Transfer Level) design. The buyer is legally forbidden from reverse-engineering it to see how it works.
• The Attack: If the UK/US government wanted to sabotage a rival nation’s tech ecosystem, they could mandate that ARM insert a “hardware trojan” (a few lines of malicious logic) into the IP cores sold to specific countries. Because the buyer is legally barred from auditing the ARM code, they would unknowingly print millions of compromised chips.

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BoingBoing is correct when it writes: “There is no way for the x86 firmware or operating system to disable ME permanently. Intel keeps most details about ME absolutely secret. There is absolutely no way for the main CPU to tell if the ME on a system has been compromised, and no way to ‘heal’ a compromised ME. There is also no way to know if malicious entities have been able to compromise ME and infect systems.”

Part 2: Why RISC-V Neutralizes These Attacks

RISC-V shifts the paradigm from “Trust the Vendor” to “Trust the Math.” Here is why design-level supply chain attacks are virtually impossible with a true open-source RISC-V implementation:

1. Total Transparency (The Glass Box)

RISC-V is an open-standard Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), and its reference implementations (the actual Verilog/SystemVerilog code that describes the hardware) are open-source.

• The Defense: Before a nation prints a RISC-V chip, their top cybersecurity agencies and engineers can read every single line of the hardware description code. They can mathematically verify that there are no hidden instructions, no backdoors, and no shadow processors. If the code doesn’t match the public specification, they will see it immediately. You cannot hide an Intel ME equivalent inside an open-source codebase.

2. No Mandatory “Shadow CPUs”

The RISC-V specification does not mandate a proprietary, closed-source management engine.

• The Defense: While a designer can add custom security modules to a RISC-V chip, they must be explicitly designed and added by the user. There is no hidden, pre-compiled, un-auditable “Ring -3” processor baked into the foundation of the architecture by a central authority.

3. The Sovereign “Copy-Paste-Fabricate” Flow

With x86 or ARM, you must rely on a middleman to give you the chip design. With RISC-V, the supply chain is entirely in your hands.

• The Defense: A country like India can take a verified, open-source RISC-V core (like the Shakti processor from IIT Madras). They can audit the code, compile it themselves, generate the physical layout files (GDSII), and send those files directly to a foundry (like TSMC) to be manufactured.
• There is no foreign IP vendor to coerce. The US or UK government cannot sanction a blueprint that is publicly available on GitHub and has been memorized by a thousand engineers.

Part 3: The Crucial Nuance (Where RISC-V is NOT a Magic Bullet)

To be completely accurate, we must distinguish between Design/IP Supply Chain Attacks and Physical Manufacturing Supply Chain Attacks.

RISC-V completely solves the Design/IP supply chain problem. However, it does not magically solve the Physical supply chain problem.

1. Commercial RISC-V is still a Black Box: If a company buys a premium, closed-source RISC-V core from a commercial vendor (like SiFive or Andes Technology) instead of using the open-source reference designs, they are back to the “black box” problem. The vendor could theoretically insert a backdoor. Solution: Nations must use and audit open-source cores, not commercial closed-source ones.
2. The Foundry Level (Hardware Trojans): Even if your RISC-V design is 100% clean and open-source, you still have to send the design to a physical fabrication plant (like TSMC in Taiwan or Samsung in South Korea) to print the silicon.
   • The Attack: A compromised foundry could subtly alter the physical photomasks during manufacturing, adding a physical “hardware trojan” (a microscopic extra transistor) that isn’t in your original code.
   • Note: This is a massive area of ongoing research in hardware security, and RISC-V’s open nature actually helps here too, as researchers are developing open-source tools to optically inspect physical chips and compare them against the open-source blueprints to detect physical tampering.

Summary

In the Web3 and blockchain world, you operate on the principle of “Don’t trust, verify.”

Proprietary x86 and ARM architectures demand blind trust in foreign corporations and their governments. They are the ultimate centralized “black boxes,” making them perfect vehicles for state-sponsored supply chain attacks via hidden microcode and shadow processors.

RISC-V brings the “Don’t trust, verify” ethos to physical hardware. By making the silicon blueprint open, auditable, and free from mandatory proprietary management engines, RISC-V ensures that a nation’s hardware is built on mathematical transparency, not geopolitical trust.

Can RISC-V be audited after Fabrication ?

Yes, RISC-V can be audited after fabrication, and this is where its open-source nature provides a massive, almost unfair advantage over proprietary chips like x86 and ARM.

Auditing a physical piece of silicon after it has been manufactured (known in the industry as Post-Silicon Verification or Hardware Security Testing) is one of the most difficult challenges in cybersecurity. However, if a malicious foundry inserts a “hardware trojan” during manufacturing, RISC-V gives security teams the exact tools they need to catch it.

Here is exactly how post-fabrication auditing works, and why RISC-V makes it possible while x86/ARM make it nearly impossible.

The Core Advantage: The “Golden Reference”

To know if a physical chip has been tampered with, you need to compare it to what it is supposed to look like. This is called the “Golden Reference.”

• With x86/ARM: You do not have the Golden Reference. Because the designs are closed-source, you don’t know exactly how many transistors are supposed to be there, what the exact power draw should be at the transistor level, or what the physical layout looks like.
• With RISC-V: You have the exact, open-source blueprint (the RTL code and the physical GDSII layout files). You know exactly what the chip should look like, how it should behave, and how much power it should consume.

Because you have the Golden Reference, you can use two main methods to hunt for post-fabrication malicious additions.

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Method 1: Non-Destructive Behavioral Auditing (Side-Channel Analysis)

You don’t always have to destroy the chip to audit it. You can monitor how it behaves while it runs.

1. Power and Electromagnetic Analysis: Every time a transistor switches on or off, it consumes a tiny amount of power and emits a microscopic electromagnetic signature.

• The Attack: If a foundry added a malicious “hardware trojan” (like a hidden circuit that secretly copies encryption keys and transmits them), that extra circuit will draw extra power when it activates.
• The RISC-V Defense: Because the RISC-V design is open-source, researchers can simulate the exact power profile of the clean, open-source code. When they test the physical chip, if the power draw spikes in a way that doesn’t match the open-source simulation, they instantly know something extra is on the silicon.
• Contrast with x86: If an Intel chip shows a weird power spike, you can’t tell if it’s a malicious trojan, or just the secret, closed-source “Intel Management Engine” doing its normal, hidden background tasks. The “noise” of proprietary secrets hides the trojans.

2. Timing and Fault Injection: Security researchers can intentionally glitch the chip’s voltage or clock speed (Fault Injection) to force it into rare, unexpected states.

• The RISC-V Defense: By fuzzing the RISC-V chip with millions of random instructions and measuring the microsecond timing of the responses, researchers can map the chip’s internal state machine. If the physical chip takes 2 nanoseconds longer to execute a specific math operation than the open-source blueprint dictates, it reveals the presence of hidden logic gates added during manufacturing.

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Method 2: Destructive Physical Auditing (Reverse Engineering)

If a nation-state suspects a batch of chips has been compromised at the foundry, they will physically tear the chip apart to look for hardware trojans.

1. Decapsulation and Imaging: The chip’s plastic/ceramic packaging is melted away using acid. The silicon die is then polished down layer by layer. Using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), researchers take high-resolution images of the physical transistors and metal interconnects.

2. The “Netlist” Extraction and Comparison: This is where RISC-V completely destroys the proprietary model.

• The RISC-V Defense: Security engineers can look at the physical images of the manufactured RISC-V chip and extract the physical “netlist” (the map of how transistors are connected). They then compare this physical map directly against the open-source RISC-V blueprint. If the foundry added 5,000 extra transistors to create a backdoor, the physical netlist will not match the open-source netlist. The trojan is immediately exposed.
• Contrast with x86/ARM: If you decap an ARM chip and find a weird cluster of transistors in the corner, you have no idea if it is a malicious trojan or a legitimate, proprietary feature (like a hardware accelerator for a specific video codec) because the manufacturer won’t show you the original blueprint. You cannot prove it is malicious.

The Reality Check: It is Still Hard

While RISC-V makes post-silicon auditing possible, it is important to understand that it is not easy.

1. It requires massive resources: Decapping a chip, imaging it with an electron microscope, and extracting the netlist requires multi-million-dollar laboratories. Only nation-states, top-tier defense contractors, and elite security firms can do this. A normal startup cannot do this in a garage.
2. Sophisticated Trojans: A highly sophisticated state actor might insert a “dormant” hardware trojan that is triggered only by a highly specific, rare sequence of inputs, meaning it won’t show up in standard power analysis unless you know exactly what to look for.

Summary

In the world of physical hardware, x86 and ARM demand blind faith. If a proprietary chip acts strangely after fabrication, you can never definitively prove it was sabotaged at the factory, because the manufacturer can just claim, “That’s just how our secret, proprietary design works.”

RISC-V brings the “Don’t Trust, Verify” ethos to the physical world. Because the blueprint is public, any physical chip can be mathematically, behaviorally, and physically compared against the open-source original. If a foundry tries to slip a malicious circuit into the silicon during manufacturing, the open-source nature of RISC-V ensures that the lie will be exposed.