alt Hacker NewsYeah, the primary reason RISC-V exists is political (the desire to have an "open source" CPU architecture). As noble as that may be, it's not enough to get people or companies to use (or even manufacture!) it. It'll either be economical (costs) and/or performance (including efficiency) that drives people.
It took ARM decades to get to where it is, and that involved a long stint in low-margin niche applications like embedded or appliances where x86 was poorly suited due to head and power consumption.
I don't think that's the primary reason there's momentum there. The reason is to avoid ARM licensing fees and IP usage restrictions.
I think you'll see ever more accelerating RISC-V adoption in China if the United States continues on its "cold war" style mentality about relations with them.
That said we're a long long way from Actually Existing RISC-V being at performance parity with ARM64, let alone x86.