The SpacemiT K3 is faster than QEMU. Much faster chips are expected to release over the next few months.

I mean things like the Milk-V Pioneer were already faster but expensive.

One thing that has been frustrating about RISC-V is that many companies close to releasing decent chips have been bought and then those chips never appear (Ventana, Rivos, etc). That and US sanctions (eg. Sophgo SG2380).

RV64GC (C910 cores)

It's also aimed at open-source projects, for free, with the intent to improve RISC-V support.

The idea is to promote testing on RISC-V and to eliminate lack of hardware for being the reason not to. Obviously, low budget projects and Open Source are the primary targets. Commercial products can afford real RISC-V hardware.

This is who you are trusting: https://riseproject.dev/members/