How Agentic AI Chip Design Built a Full RISC-V Core

Startup Verkor.io has built a RISC-V CPU core called VerCore using an agentic AI system called Design Conductor, completing the design in 12 hours from a 219-word prompt. The system orchestrates LLMs through structured steps mirroring human chip design workflows — from RTL specification through layout — outputting a GDSII file compatible with existing EDA tools. VerCore achieved a CoreMark score of 3,261 at 1.48GHz, comparable to a 2011-era Intel Celeron, and is claimed to be the first complete RISC-V CPU core designed entirely by an AI agent. The chip has been verified in simulation using Spike and the ASAP7 PDK but has not been physically fabricated. Verkor.io plans to release design files and demonstrate an FPGA implementation at DAC. The team acknowledges limitations: the system can fall into debugging rabbit holes a human engineer would avoid, and compute requirements grow non-linearly with design complexity. They estimate a team of 5–10 experts is still needed to reach a production-ready design.