[buster]

Like producing an ARM or Sparc or MIPS based design? Why would that be unimaginable? Qualcomm, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung and Co. do this. You're overestimating this and you're claiming that this processor would be new from the ground, which i don't see proof for. If it's a Sparc based design as others have claimed in this thread, it might become a slow, power-consuming processor, but it might work quite ok.

[seanmcdirmid]

The ISA and even the logical architecture is easy. Laying it out and producing the chip is not, at all. You need a few billion $s investment in equipment AND people (you can poach the latter, the former is much harder to buy beyond outdated processes).

China is better off taking over Taiwan, who have much of both.

[buster]

No need for the latest and greates from the R&D departments of Intel. Even if the CPU will be at the level of some older Pentium models, it will be good enough to run office suites and Linux in some government departments. More then enough.