SUSE and Openchip have signed an MoU to native-certify enterprise software on European-designed RISC-V accelerators, offering an open alternative to overseas chip monopolies.
SUSE, an open-source enterprise software group, and Openchip, a Spanish developer of high-performance RISC-V accelerators, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build Europe’s first enterprise-grade, digitally sovereign technology stack. It pairs European-designed open hardware architectures with enterprise open-source software to reduce reliance on overseas proprietary chip technologies and mitigate supply chain disruptions.
While Openchip has not yet deployed a commercial chip, physical products and market availability are targeted for early 2027. The agreement ensures that SUSE’s core enterprise platforms are optimised and certified to run natively on Openchip’s upcoming RISC-V compute accelerators. Covered software includes:
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Operating Systems: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and the community-supported openSUSE Tumbleweed distribution.
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Container Management: SUSE Kubernetes Engine (RKE2) and SUSE Rancher Prime (complete with specialised Kubernetes plugins and operators to handle observability and fleet management across Openchip hardware).
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Artificial Intelligence: A secure Machine Learning (ML) platform merging the SUSE AI Factory with Openchip’s native inference software to support secure model residency and AI agent workloads.
The hardware relies on RISC-V—an open standard, license-free instruction set architecture (ISA)—specifically tuning for the RVA23 profile and RVV vector instructions required for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads. The partnership includes building dedicated hypervisor support for cloud environments. A central objective is ensuring the hardware fits seamlessly into existing data centre workflows so organisations do not have to rebuild their entire legacy software infrastructure from scratch.
Headquartered in Barcelona, Openchip is designated as an Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) by the European Commission, backed by €111 million in EU NextGen funds alongside the €240 million DARE project. The integration explicitly focuses on serving critical, heavily regulated sectors (defence, healthcare, public sector, and critical infrastructure), engineered to help organisations comply with strict European data regulations, including NIS2, DORA, and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA).
