An important part of this announcement is that Andes Technology is a Taiwanese company. I'm aware that there are American companies producing RISC-V microcontrollers, but in terms of microprocessors, RISC-V was shaping up to be something that was only physically manufactured in China, and therefore a risky proposition in terms of geopolitics.

On the other hand, like FOSS OSes, it represents a way that countries can free themselves from current administration as geopolitics keep going into the bad direction.

It was a great decision to take RISC-V foundation outside USA.