China's push for semiconductor self-sufficiency reached a new scale with a school district trial in Hebi that began in April 2024. The program deployed 10,000 personal computers powered by Loongson 3A5000 processors and the Deepin-based Unity Operating System. The pilot is designed to drive adoption of Loongson-and-Linux machines across China's school system, with a target of 50 million Loongson-based computers sold annually through 2030.
Loongson, also known as Godson, began development in 2001 at the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chief architect Hu Weiwu led the project, which aimed to develop high-performance general-purpose microprocessors domestically. The effort formed a core part of the Made in China 2025 plan and drew funding through the Chinese Communist Party's 10th and 11th Five-Year Plans.
The company commercialized in April 2010 as Loongson Technology Corporation Limited, structured as a public-private partnership between the institute and Beijing-based chip designer BLX IC Design Corporation. As a fabless designer, Loongson relied on outside manufacturers; STMicroelectronics fabricated at least some of its early processors.
Loongson's path to scale runs directly into United States trade policy. In March 2023, the Commerce Department added Loongson to the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List, restricting the company's access to American technology over its alleged ties to the People's Liberation Army.
Performance benchmarks show Loongson processors still trail established Western designs. The 12-core Loongson 3B6000 is roughly three times slower than a six-core AMD Ryzen 5 9600X. Its LA664 CPU architecture reportedly matches AMD's Zen 3 in instructions per cycle, but low clock speeds cap overall throughput. In archive compression and video encoding, Loongson chips generally underperform older designs including AMD's Zen 2 line and Intel's 10th-generation Core processors. Loongson is developing newer CPU architectures to close that gap.
To build a self-sufficient software stack, Loongson partnered with UnionTech and Sunway in 2020. The collaboration centers on the Debian-Linux-based Deepin operating system, reducing China's dependence on Microsoft Windows across education and other sectors.
Financially, the company has required sustained capital infusions. Loongson filed for an initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market in 2021, seeking to raise $500 million. IPO disclosures showed the company needed 400 million yuan in annual funding during its first decade and did not break even until 2015.
Loongson has also moved into the server market with a homegrown 16-core processor built on its LoongArch architecture. The 40-watt chip supports DDR4 ECC memory and 32 PCIe lanes, targeting low-cost file, database and web servers for small and midsize businesses.
The server chip runs at 1.5 GHz to 1.8 GHz. Each core includes two fixed-point units, one vector unit and two memory access units, with support for 128-bit vector instructions and three-issue out-of-order execution. Cache and memory capacity are modest by current server standards, consistent with the chip's low-cost positioning.
The 50 million-unit school target, set against sustained U.S. export controls, defines the terms of China's semiconductor strategy: build a captive domestic market large enough to fund competitive chip development without foreign supply chains.
