Calista Redmond

Congratulations on your selection as a 2024 HPCwire Person to Watch. As a longtime electronics industry executive and the former president of the member-driven OpenPOWER organization, could you tell us a bit about your role as CEO of RISC-V and how it differs from being CEO of a more traditional “product” company?” What’s most challenging and what’s most rewarding?

As CEO of RISC-V International, I oversee the development and adoption of the RISC-V ISA. While there are parallels with being CEO of a traditional “product” company, the open nature of RISC-V presents unique challenges and opportunities. There is more of a focus on ecosystem collaboration, standardization, and community engagement.

One challenge I face in my role is increasing education and understanding of the RISC-V ISA to ensure its widespread adoption. For example, we’ve recently had conversations about the importance of RISC-V’s open nature. As a global standard, RISC-V has already grown tremendously and allowed people to innovate faster. Just as companies worldwide have embraced Ethernet, HTTPS, JPEG, and USB standards, our goal is to facilitate broader comprehension and acceptance of RISC-V as an open standard.

The most rewarding part of my job is getting to collaborate with people in the RISC-V ecosystem. The progress that technologists, academics, government entities, and companies are making excites me. Everyone has so much passion and I’m proud to work alongside them. I’m consistently inspired and driven by our community’s energy and commitment to advancing RISC-V. This community pushes me to create, innovate, and drive the computing industry forward.

It’s hard to overstate the rapid growth of RISC-V. While X86 architecture may be entrenched, the RISC-V groundswell is impressive and growing. Can you give us a recap of recent RISC-V milestones and current priorities?

Yes, RISC-V International has seen great momentum during the past year. In 2023, RISC-V membership was up 28%, with more than 4,100 members across 70 countries! And now with more than 13 billion cores on the market, RISC-V International hosts over 75 technical working groups, driving progress and advancement on RISC-V standards, software development, and tools.

We are also continuing to witness impressive adoption across a wide variety of industry verticals, with some of the biggest companies in the world unveiling new hardware and software solutions for RISC-V. Some of these verticals include aerospace, AI/ML, automotive, data center, embedded, HPC, and security. For example, Qualcomm and Google are collaborating to bring a RISC-V based wearables solution for use with Wear OS by Google, and Meta launched its first-generation AI inference accelerator, based on the RISC-V open ISA. AI/ML is a vertical that will have lots of traction in 2024 due to RISC-V’s flexibility and speed to market. We expect this overall growth of RISC-V implementations to increase significantly in the coming years, adding to the tens of billions of cores already on the market.

The RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE) Project announced last year seems like a key piece to the puzzle of assembling a complete RISC-V ecosystem. What can we expect from RISE, and can you share any details around early tools in development that RISC-V should expect?

The entire RISC-V ecosystem benefits from a shared open standard, with design freedom, flexibility, interoperability, and scale. The launch of RISE this past year is another milestone in the continued growth of our burgeoning RISC-V community with specific focus on the software ecosystem. Together with RISE, we’re working to ensure porting and optimizing workloads on RISC-V continues to accelerate. I know the work underway will be hugely impactful to the RISC-V ecosystem as well as the broader technology industry. With companies including Imagination Technologies, Intel, Andes Technology, Google, MediaTek, Nvidia, Qualcomm Technologies, Red Hat, Rivos, Samsung, SiFive, T-Head, and Ventana working together, this project has the potential to deliver big results.

One recent worry is that the strong uptake of RISC-V in China may prompt U.S. restrictions on RISC-V technology. What’s your sense of how significant the risk of geopolitical rivalry poses to RISC-V development?

RISC-V International has a diverse membership base, with about one-third of the members in North America, one-third in Europe, and one-third in APAC. No single company or country has singular influence in the direction, decisions, and governance of RISC-V. We have a strong history and governance to safeguard this risk, including our Board of Directors, Technical Steering Committee, and numerous working groups, special interest groups, committees, and more.

As a result, companies and individuals from around the world are collaborating together to shape the future of computing. Having a multitude of voices participate is important for healthy collaboration as we set a shared foundation of standards that anyone may build upon with their unique differentiation. This enables broad global adoption and participation.

What inspired you to pursue a career in STEM, and what advice would you give to young people who wish to follow in your footsteps?

I was raised by parents who worked in the public sector, so I grew up learning about the importance of creating equal opportunities for everyone and making a positive impact on the world. Throughout my studies in science, communications, sociology, and business, I always looked for ways to combine my business acumen and my love for innovation with my desire to leverage technology for good. In my work now, I’m continuously inspired by how people are using RISC-V for transformative applications across industries like automotive, data center, AI/ML, and more.

For those who are considering a career in STEM, my advice is to go for it! This field is always innovating and it’s never too early, or late, to start. I recommend looking at and joining organizations that have similar guiding values as you do.

Outside of the professional sphere, what can you tell us about yourself – unique hobbies, favorite places, etc.? Is there anything about you your colleagues might be surprised to learn?

Well, to start, my job is derived from my passion for technology and its intersection with finding ways to make a positive impact with innovation. I have always found joy in my work, however, outside of my professional sphere, I greatly enjoy snowboarding and spending time with my children. I used to be a mediocre snowboarder and today I am both a mediocre snowboarder and a mediocre surfer! So I continue to make progress.