SiFive Drives RISC-V Into The Data Center With BigSky Server Platform
SiFive introduced its BigSky SF-2U870 development platform today at Hot Chips 2026, delivering the first rackable 2U enterprise server driven by RISC-V hardware. Designed specifically for hyperscalers, chipmakers, and software vendors, the platform gives engineering teams a turnkey physical system to port enterprise code, profile workloads, and validate custom silicon designs before committing to full-scale production runs.
"Ultimately, we are focused on enabling customers to meaningfully optimize the TCO of their custom SoC solutions with SiFive IP. RISC-V in the datacenter isn't a distant aspiration any more, it is happening right now, and SiFive is leading the way," said Patrick Little, Chairman and CEO at SiFive.
Inside, the 2U chassis packs 32 of SiFive's P870-D cores operating at 2GHz, along with 256GB of DDR5-5600 memory, a 3.84TB U.2 NVMe drive, 10/25Gbps OCP 3.0 networking, and 64 total lanes of PCIe Gen 5 x16 expansion. That high-speed I/O leaves room for double-wide GPUs and specialized hardware accelerators, and SiFive says the system is fully compliant with the RVA23 standard.
What about software compatibility? This has long been a major hurdle for RISC-V server adoption, which gets a big boost with this release. BigSky supports standard enterprise operating systems right out of the box, including Canonical Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 (RHEL 10).
"At Canonical, we are committed to driving open-source innovation from developer environments to the datacenter core," said Gordan Markuš, Director of Silicon Alliances at Canonical. "Out-of-the-box support for RVA23 and Ubuntu 26.04 LTS on SiFive’s BigSky datacenter development platform provides the enterprise software foundation required to accelerate AI and cloud-native workloads on RISC-V. We are proud to collaborate with SiFive, and this seamless integration ensures our mutual customers can confidently port enterprise workloads and accelerate their transition to RISC-V in the datacenter today."
SiFive also teamed up with NVIDIA to port CUDA to its RISC-V hardware and integrate NVLink Fusion into its future platforms, the company said.
SiFive says its platforms are available immediately in limited production quantities, with "demand outpacing supply."
