RISC-V the ISA is open; RISC-V implementations need not be. There's no reason to believe that any truly high-performance implementations will be usefully open.

There are also many high-performance Chinese implementations that are open-source (e.g., XuanTie C910, XiangShan, etc.).

While achieving an open-core design comparable to Zen 5 is unlikely in the near term, a sustained open-source collaborative effort could, in the long run, significantly change the situation. For example, current versions of XiangShan are targeting ~20 SPECint 2006/GHz (early where at ~9).

Yeah, but then the US doesn't get to spy on you anymore ;)

Stuff tends to stay open until a new leader emerges. Then the closed source shell appears.

We've seen this with the hyperscalers and in a million other places.

Use open to pressure and weed out incumbents and market leaders. Then you're free to do whatever.

So we'd be replacing NSA spying with MSS spying.

And since China has such a lead, you'll be using their implementations.

That's why this is geopolitical.

The DoD and Five Eyes prefer ARM, where the US maintains a strong lead.