Why would AMD do that today though? They are in a privileged position to have an x86 license and zillions of customers asking for an x86. AMD once made some ARM chips and realised they didn’t need to.
Agreed. The only reason I can think of for AMD to set up an alternative instruction set would be a sudden rise in competition from other players. If big advances are made in the RISC-V space that make the architecture a cost effective alternative to amd64 (including the cost of porting software to RISC-V) then I can see them setting themselves up to allow running software on both platforms at native speeds.
I don't think AMD is currently limited by their instruction set. Even if they are, there may be an argument to move to ARM instead of RISC-V to take advantage of the software already ported because of Apple's transition and the Graviton chips. Windows already runs on ARM but hasn't been announced to run on RISC-V, after all.
>would be a sudden rise in competition from other players.
This is exactly what I see happening. AMD will have to move to RISC-V to stay competitive, and x86 acceleration is a compelling feature they can offer.
>Windows already runs on ARM but hasn't been announced to run on RISC-V, after all.
I doubt this one will be an issue for long. During last summit, in talks by the RISC-V foundation itself (specifically, the technical ones about ongoing ISA work), Windows was mentioned a few times as the reasoning for some new specifications.
This strongly implies Microsoft is working on Windows for RISC-V, even if Microsoft themselves haven't said a word about it.
