Michael Chapman, CEO of Cortus, on RISC-V, AI, and Europe’s Semiconductor Future

Why It Matters

The interview underscores that Europe’s technological independence hinges on adopting open, high‑performance RISC‑V architectures, reshaping the competitive landscape for embedded and AI computing.

Key Takeaways

• Cortus chips are in over 18 billion devices, 1.2 billion annually
• RISC‑V adoption driven by demand for open, differentiable processor architectures
• Europe seeks high‑performance, out‑of‑order RISC‑V CPUs for sovereignty
• Edge AI workloads demand secure, low‑power processors with on‑chip inference
• Cortus aims to deliver >2,000 TOPS in scalable AI platforms

Pulse Analysis

RISC‑V has moved from an academic curiosity to a cornerstone of the global semiconductor ecosystem, attracting heavyweights such as Google, NVIDIA and IBM. Europe’s policy makers see the open ISA as a strategic lever to reduce reliance on foreign chip designs and to foster a home‑grown ecosystem that can compete in high‑performance markets. By joining the founding members of the RISC‑V Foundation, Cortus gained early insight into this momentum and now leverages the architecture to deliver both low‑power microcontrollers and out‑of‑order multicore CPUs tailored for demanding applications.

Designing secure, energy‑efficient edge devices is becoming a multidimensional puzzle. Engineers must embed hardware root‑of‑trust, cryptographic accelerators and robust update mechanisms while keeping power budgets tight enough for battery‑operated sensors. At the same time, AI inference is migrating from cloud GPUs to on‑device processors, demanding specialized instruction sets and high throughput per watt. Cortus addresses these pressures with a portfolio that spans sub‑watt microcontrollers to AI inference CPUs capable of more than 2,000 TOPS, enabling customers to consolidate functionality and reduce bill‑of‑materials across automotive, avionics and industrial IoT.

The broader industry is witnessing a paradigm shift where energy efficiency is measured alongside raw performance. Data‑center operators, autonomous vehicle developers and robotics manufacturers all prioritize workloads that deliver the required compute at the lowest power cost. This drives a move toward heterogeneous architectures that blend general‑purpose cores with domain‑specific accelerators. For Europe, building such capabilities domestically is essential to avoid strategic lock‑in and to sustain its industrial edge. Cortus’s focus on open‑source RISC‑V, secure silicon and scalable AI inference positions it as a key enabler of that transition, offering a blueprint for a sovereign, energy‑conscious semiconductor future.