Chinese CPU vendor swaps AMD Zen architecture for homegrown one to deliver 128-core monster to give EPYC and Xeon a run for their money

• Hygon’s C86-5G breaks free from AMD Zen, unleashing 128 cores of homegrown muscle
• SMT4 powers each core to run four threads, stacking up to 512 threads total
• AVX-512 instructions make it a strong fit for AI, analytics, and scientific computing

Hygon, a key player in China’s semiconductor industry, is advancing its server processor lineup with the upcoming C86-5G, a flagship, high-performance CPU featuring 128 cores and 512 threads, positioning it to compete directly with AMD’s EPYC and Intel’s Xeon platforms.

According to TechPowerUp, this marks Hygon’s complete break from AMD’s Zen architecture and the introduction of its first fully homegrown design, the result of five years of domestic R&D in CPU development.

The new lineup is made possible through four-way simultaneous multithreading (SMT4), allowing each core to handle four threads.

Built for parallel workloads and high throughput

While SMT4 is not ...