Vensa — a nonprofit advancing open silicon

Vensa is a nonprofit launching a long-term philanthropic project in 2026 to grow Open Silicon, an open alternative to proprietary chip design and manufacturing. The article argues that chip design is currently costly and secretive, with a new mid-range chip costing tens of millions of dollars and involving dozens of proprietary inputs, so only the most profitable designs get made. Vensa says Open Silicon is not yet performant enough to compete with closed alternatives, and it plans to focus on free and open IP, PDKs and design tooling, affordable tape-outs, and growing the movement.