Funding for 64-bit Armv8-a support in PyPy

Hello everyone

At PyPy we are trying to support a relatively wide range of platforms. We have PyPy working on OS X, Windows and various flavors of linux (and unofficially various flavors of BSD) on the software side, with hardware side having x86, x86_64, PPC, 32-bit Arm (v7) and even zarch. This is harder than for other projects, since PyPy emits assembler on the fly from the just in time compiler and it requires significant amount of work to port it to a new platform.

We are pleased to inform that Arm Limited, together with Crossbar.io GmbH, are sponsoring the development of 64-bit Armv8-a architecture support through Baroque Software OU, which would allow PyPy to run on a new variety of low-power, high-density servers with that architecture. We believe this will be beneficial for the funders, for the PyPy project as well as to the wider community.

The work will commence soon and will be done some time early next year with expected speedups either comparable to x86 speedups or, if our current experience with ARM holds, more significant than x86 speedups.

Best,
Maciej Fijalkowski and the PyPy team