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Covering all scenarios from low power consumption to entry-level high performance.
Recently, the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) showed that Nuclei System Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (Nuclei) has initiated IPO tutoring, with China Merchants Securities as the tutoring institution. Previously, the company was listed on the Innovation Layer of the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ) in August 2026 and completed a targeted fundraising of approximately CNY 42 million.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Pudong, Shanghai, Nuclei System Technology focuses on the R&D of RISC-V CPU IP and corresponding platform solutions. It is a representative enterprise in the domestic RISC-V field and a national-level key "Little Giant" enterprise.
Currently, the company has launched four general-purpose CPU IP product lines: N/U and NX/UX, and three vertical CPU IP product lines: NS, NA, and NI. The total number of officially licensed customers and projects exceeds 300, covering multiple fields such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), automotive electronics, 5G communications, network security, storage, industrial control, MCU (Microcontroller Unit), and IoT (Internet of Things).
Entrepreneurship of a Technological Idealist
Zhenbo Hu, founder of Nuclei System Technology, graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and obtained a master's degree from the School of Microelectronics. He is one of the earliest promoters of the RISC-V architecture in China.
After obtaining his master's degree, he joined the Marvell Shanghai R&D Center, responsible for the development of ARM processors. In 2010, due to work requirements, he was dispatched to the Marvell Silicon Valley headquarters as a Senior Engineer in ARM architecture CPU design.
During his three years in Silicon Valley, Hu participated in the R&D of multiple high-performance processors. He found that processor design is not an out-of-reach technical forbidden zone, and the required technologies are already mature. However, the high closure of the ARM ecosystem allows only a very few engineers to truly access this narrow and highly advanced field. This judgment directly influenced his subsequent career choices.
After returning to China, Hu joined Synopsys as an R&D Manager, engaged in the R&D and management of processor core IP. Later, he held positions in several semiconductor companies, including Bitmain and Wuhan Juxin Microelectronics, accumulating many years of experience in IC (Integrated Circuit) and processor design and verification.
In 2018, at the age of 33, Hu, as one of the technical leaders in the domestic RISC-V community, completed the development of "Hummingbird E203", the first domestic RISC-V open-source processor core. This open-source core spread rapidly in the RISC-V enthusiast community in mainland China, which also made Hu realize that this endeavor was worth turning from a hobby into a career.
Subsequently, he resigned from the major tech company and founded Nuclei System Technology, the first commercial RISC-V processor core company in China. In the same year, the first domestic book on RISC-V processor design he wrote, "Teach You to Design CPU Step by Step - RISC-V Processor", was published.
In the early stage of entrepreneurship, Hu visited Wayne Dai, his senior at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and founder of VeriSilicon, with this book. Dai became the earliest patron of Nuclei System Technology and invested in this fledgling IP enterprise during the angel round.
In 2025, Nuclei System Technology was nearly acquired by VeriSilicon. In August of that year, VeriSilicon announced the signing of an "Intention Agreement on Equity Acquisition" with Nuclei Zhirong, planning to acquire 97.0070% equity of Nuclei System Technology through issuing shares and paying cash, to improve VeriSilicon's full-stack heterogeneous computing layout of core processor IP + CPU IP.
However, less than five months later, the acquisition was terminated. VeriSilicon mentioned in the announcement that the core demands raised by the management of the target company and the counterparties deviated from the market environment, policy requirements, and the interests of the company and all shareholders.
However, this did not end their bond. As a shareholder of Nuclei Zhirong and one of the most important promoters of the domestic RISC-V ecosystem development, VeriSilicon stated that it will maintain and deepen the cooperative relationship and continue to strengthen its layout in the RISC-V field.
After the termination of the acquisition, Nuclei System Technology chose the path of independently rushing into the capital market.
In August 2026, the company was listed on the Innovation Layer of the NEEQ and simultaneously completed a targeted fundraising of approximately CNY 42 million. The subscribers were Heilongjiang Zhenxing Advanced Manufacturing Industry Private Equity Fund and SMIC Xicheng (Beijing) Digital Technology Fund. The raised funds were used for the R&D project of the RISC-V chip customization platform. Just one month later, the company submitted the application materials for the listing tutoring record to the Shanghai Securities Regulatory Bureau for the Beijing Stock Exchange (BSE).
"Full-Stack Player" in the RISC-V Track
The core business of Nuclei System Technology is the R&D and licensing of RISC-V CPU IP and corresponding platform solutions. To understand the value of this company, it is necessary to first understand the position of RISC-V in the chip industry.
In a typical AI SoC (System on Chip) heterogeneous architecture, CPU IP undertakes master control scheduling and task management capabilities, while dedicated cores such as NPU undertake AI tensor acceleration, working together with various dedicated accelerators. In CPU IP, ARM licensed IP used to be the main choice, but now RISC-V provides an additional option and can serve as an alternative to ARM.
RISC-V is an open standard that allows any individual or organization to freely use, modify, and extend it. This means the RISC-V ecosystem is shared, and the ecosystem itself does not constitute a differentiation barrier. The real barrier depends on the competitiveness and commercialization capabilities of each company's own products.
Nuclei System Technology has currently built four general-purpose CPU IP product lines: N/U and NX/UX, and three vertical CPU IP product lines: NS, NA, and NI, covering all scenarios from low power consumption to entry-level high performance. Its customers include many listed companies and central/state-owned enterprises such as GigaDevice, VeriSilicon, Bestechnic, Amlogic, and Motorcomm, placing it at the forefront of the RISC-V commercial CPU IP field.
In the vertical field, Nuclei System Technology has multiple representative IP products.
The NA900 automotive-grade processor is the world's first RISC-V CPU IP to pass the ISO26262 ASIL-B/D product certification; the NI900, based on the 900 series processor, has undergone multiple feature optimizations for AI applications and has been adopted by many domestic AI chip companies.
In the general-purpose RISC-V CPU IP market, Nuclei System Technology's products also possess strong competitiveness.
In low-power scenarios, the 100 series is one of the smallest RISC-V cores in the world, the 200 series is the world's first general-purpose MCU based on RISC-V, and the 300 series is Nuclei's most popular low-power core; in high-energy-efficiency scenarios, the 600/900 series is the best-selling product line, supporting rich configurations such as Linux, multi-core, dual-mode, and Vector; in high-performance scenarios, the recently released 1030H is one of the world's earliest RISC-V commercial CPU IPs to support RVA23, and the 1000 series will fully support the RVA23 Profile; in ultra-high-performance scenarios, the 2000 series, targeting the server field, is currently in the R&D stage.
In addition to CPU IP, Nuclei System Technology has also introduced a subsystem model, elevating the discrete IP licensing model to an SoC subsystem customization and licensing model.
The richness of self-developed IP is the foundation of this model. In addition to its accumulation in RISC-V CPU IP, Nuclei System Technology also has 40 to 50 self-owned peripheral IPs, helping design companies lower development thresholds, cycles, costs, and risks, while not forcing customer binding and retaining differentiation space.
The company's revenue structure also reflects the current stage of development. In the first half of 2026, Nuclei System Technology's revenue was CNY 36.8745 million, of which RISC-V IP licensing revenue was CNY 34.0062 million, accounting for 92.22%. Chip customization and solution revenue was CNY 2.6887 million, accounting for 7.29%.
As of the end of June 2026, Chiplet products and server chip products have not yet generated revenue and are in the R&D and layout stages, respectively.
From the perspective of industry trends, RISC-V is in a critical period of rise. According to SHD Group's forecast, the global RISC-V CPU IP market revenue is expected to grow from USD 205 million in 2024 to USD 1.912 billion in 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of 39.7% from 2025 to 2031.
However, the construction of the RISC-V ecosystem and its commercial implementation are still in the early stages. Hu has a clear judgment on this: RISC-V is difficult to disrupt Arm in the short term, but will form a complementary pattern. Compared with Arm, RISC-V has cost and flexibility advantages in segmented markets such as low-power IoT and automotive electronics, but still needs to break through ecological barriers in the field of high-performance computing.
For Nuclei System Technology, from the NEEQ to the BSE, and from IP licensing to Chiplet and server chips, every step is a part of a long-distance run. The development of RISC-V requires mental preparation for a long cycle and cannot happen overnight. Nuclei System Technology is running this marathon belonging to domestic RISC-V enterprises at its own pace.
Text | Zhouyu Editor | Yida