>Chinese-designed "Dhyana" x86 processors based on AMD's Zen microarchitecture are beginning to surface from Chinese chip producer Hygon. The processors come as the fruit of AMD's x86 IP licensing agreements with its China-based partners and break the decades-long stranglehold on x86 held by the triumvirate of Intel, AMD and VIA Technologies.
>AMD's announcement in 2016 that it had established a joint venture in China to develop processors was surprising, but it yielded a much needed $293 million cash infusion (in payments based on delivery dates) for the then-struggling company, which had operated at a loss for the prior six quarters.
>As part of the licensing agreement, AMD established a joint venture (JV) in China called the Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. Ltd. (THATIC) and agreed to license its x86 and SoC IP for chip development. THATIC consists of AMD and both public and private Chinese companies, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences that is heavily influenced by the Chinese government.
>And thus, AMD's licensing of the x86 IP stays within the legal boundaries. According to the agreement, the final products can only be sold within China's borders. That opens up a huge opportunity for AMD via royalties due to the exploding China data center market, but potentially serves a blow to Intel due to the Chinese governments' influence: China has invested heavily in native chip producers through its Made In China 2025 initiative and also offers incentives and other measures to prop up domestic chip production.
AMD managed to get around the x86 licensing restrictions, Intel truly BTFO since they still can't sell server CPUs to China.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-zen-x86-processor-dryhana,37417.html
https://archive.fo/8Ggkw
Its interesting to see China start to fall in line with the west in regards to respecting IP, the Chinese could have easily just stolen the IP from AMD but instead licensed it through a joint venture.