来源：内容综合自tomshardware和RISC-V，谢谢。
在英特尔以 20 亿美元竞购业界抢先的 RISC-V 设计公司SiFive 之后，开源 RISC-V 指令集架构正获得更多主流关注。不幸的是，RISC-V 长期以来不断被降级为较小的芯片和微控制器，这限制了它的吸引力。但是，随着监管 RISC-V 指令集架构 (ISA) 开发的组织 RISC-V International宣布计划将该架构扩展到高功能计算、人工智能和超级计算运用程序，这种状况应该很快就会改变。
RISC-V 开源 ISA 于 2016 年终次推出，但最后的内核仅适用于微控制器和一些基本的片上系统设计。但是，经过几年的发展，众多芯片开发商（如阿里巴巴）曾经针对云数据中心、AI 工作负载（如 Jim Keller 主导的 Tenstorrent）和高级存储运用（如希捷、西部数据）创建了设计。
这意味着开发人员对高功能RISC-V芯片很感兴味。但是，为了促进边缘、HPC 和超级计算运用程序采用 RISC-V ISA，该行业需求更弱小的硬件和软件生态系统（以及与传统运用程序和基准测试的兼容性）。这就是用于HPC的RISC-V SIG发挥作用的地方。
目前，RISC-V SIG-HPC的邮件列表中有141名成员，研讨、学术和芯片行业有 10 名活跃成员。不断壮大的SIG的关键义务是提出各种新的HPC特定指令和扩展，并与其他技术小组合作，确保为不断发展的ISA思索HPC要求。作为这项义务的一部分，SIG需求定义AI/HPC/边缘要求，并绘制一条特征和才能途径，以达到 RISC-V 与 Arm、x86 和其他架构竞争的程度。
RISC-V SIG-HPC 也有短期目的。2021年，该集团将专注于HPC软件生态系统。首先，该小组计划寻觅开箱即用的可以与RISC-V ISA一同运用的开源软件（基准测试、库和实践程序）。这个过程被设置为自动化。首批调查将针对 GROMACS、Quantum ESPRESSO和CP2K等运用；FFT、BLAS、GCC 和LLVM等库；以及HPL和HPCG等基准测试。
RISC-V SIG-HPC将在生态系统固化后制定更详细的道路图。RISC-V SIG的长期目的是构建一个开源的硬件和软件生态系统，既可以满足对功能要求高的新兴运用程序，又可以满足传统需求。
这需求多少年？只要工夫会证明一切，但来自英特尔等大公司的行业支持一定有助于加快这一工夫表。
RISC-V官方原文：
RISC-V SIG-HPC Enabling RISC-V in HPC, Supercomputers to the Edge, and Emerging AI/ML/DL HPC Workloads
RISC-V was first deployed as a microcontroller or embedded processor. However, in the future, the RISC-V ISA can also power the most powerful computers as processors and accelerators. In order to do that, the ISA must have features and an ecosystem to support HPC and these features are different from what is defined as an embedded system, where the RISC-V ISA first got traction.
The RISC-V Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing (SIG-HPC) was formed to address the requirements of the HPC community and align the RISC-V ISA. The SIG is a global committee that works on enabling HPC with the RISC-V ISA and its goal is to enable RISC-V in a broader set of new software and hardware opportunities in the high performance computing space, supercomputers to the edge, and the software ecosystem required to run legacy and emerging (AI/ML/DL) HPC workloads. First, the SIG defined HPC to provide overall group scope and define the target markets, users, and applications. With this definition and scope, the interests of the SIG-HPC were rank ordered to provide high impact results, from discovery and gap analysis to implementation. In order to accomplish this, two things need to take place: 1) Plot a path to becoming competitive and 2) Extend that path to lead the community with new features and capabilities.
A broad definition of HPC from the SIG and some related commentary:
“A computer system designed to execute applications that would take days/years/centuries on a desktop/mobile device, in seconds/minutes or require weeks or months to run, even at large scale.”
Various technologies are used to achieve this speedup. Over time, newer technologies and applications will be developed with newer access methods and implementation methodologies. Some applications may consume the entire computer system, while in other scenarios the computer system may be partitioned to run many applications.
In HPC, one can expect very large main memory capacities and very large online datasets. These capabilities will be used to increase the fidelity of the answer and/or some applications will be required to provide answers in a real-time transaction environment. Access may be limited to a particular organization or globally accessible in a cloud environment.
As the HPC definition suggests, HPC is everywhere. The basic algorithms and kernels power a wide range of computations. It starts in the traditional space of supercomputers used for weather forecasting, computational fluid dynamics, to material science, and protein folding, in both research and industrial applications. We even see HPC in the cloud.
The SIG-HPC aims to enable all of those workloads and more. As a result, there are 141 members on the mailing list and 10 active research, academia, and industrial members from a wide range of organizations and these are growing exponentially. The group is united in making RISC-V an option in HPC. It also works with other technical groups in RISC-V to make sure HPC requirements are kept in mind for the evolving ISA.
For 2021, SIG-HPC’s goals are to start new initiatives, such as mapping the HPC software ecosystem to RISC-V. This involves automation to discover which open source software, from libraries to benchmarks and applications, work out-of-the-box on the RISC-V ISA. SIG-HPC is starting with the most common libraries like FFT, BLAS, and using GCC and LLVM to compile the codes. The same automation is being applied to benchmarks like HPL and HPCG as well as applications like GROMACS, Quantum ESPRESSO and CP2K. The list is growing! Based on this work, efforts can be targeted to increase library to application coverage by the RISC-V software ecosystem.
Overall, SIG-HPC’s vision is that of a future where the entire HPC system can be based on open source components. Today’s technology trends require specialization to meet the power and performance workload targets. This enables hardware-software co-design, which is a natural fit for open systems, enabling more research and development. The next major milestone for SIG-HPC is to map the HPC ecosystem and develop an associated roadmap. This is where you can get involved!
John D. Davis, Ph.D.SIG-HPC Chair
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