Huawei has quietly open-sourced the Linxi instruction set on GitHub. The project aims to unify CPU, GPU, and AI accelerators at the instruction set level. According to a Weibo leaker, the goal is to make CPU and GPU no longer two types of processors but two working modes of the same chip.
Trademark filings reveal long-term planning
Huawei applied for the Chinese trademark 'Linxi ISA' in September 2019 and the English trademark 'LinxiISA' in October 2022. The project is described as high-risk, high-reward with potential to unify Huawei's chip lines including Ascend, Kirin, Kunpeng, and future GPUs. No actual performance or hardware implementation has been demonstrated yet.
The leaker described Linxi as the first open-source project in 20 years attempting such unification at the instruction set level. However, this claim comes from a single source on Zhihu and has not been independently verified. Huawei has not confirmed the launch window or provided further details.
The Linxi ISA represents an ambitious step for Huawei's chip strategy. If successful, it could streamline development across different processor types. For now, the project remains in early open-source stages with no hardware proof of concept.
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