China’s KylinOS Linux takes a great leap forward to v11 and kernel 6.6

Supports several Chinese chips and GPUs – and of course it has AI inside

China’s KylinSoft has delivered a major update to its flagship Linux, which Beijing hailed as a great leap forward for the nation’s ambition to develop operating systems that match and exceed the capabilities of western products.

KylinOS 11, announced on Wednesday, uses version 6.6 of the Linux kernel and runs on processors from AMD and Intel, plus eight Chinese CPUs that mostly use their own instruction set architectures. The OS can also work with seven Chinese GPUs, plus accelerators from AMD and Nvidia.

Versions for desktops and servers arrived at the same time, complete with an AI assistant, model context protocol, cloud integration, and enhanced security.

Chen Zhihua, party secretary of Kylin Software and the company’s Chairman, said KylinOS is already China’s most-used domestic OS with 16 million installations. In a nation of 1.4 billion people, that’s minuscule market share. But state media talked up the new release as a significant moment in China’s effort to create a domestic tech ecosystem, because it represents a shift from a "functional support platform" to an "intelligent connection base."

Version 6.6 of the Linux kernel was 2023’s Long Term Support release, meaning support ends in December 2026, just 16 months after this release. KylinOS 10 debuted in 2020 with version 4.19 of the Linux kernel under the hood. Support for that version of the kernel ended in December 2024, so presumably KylinSoft is comfortable keeping a distro alive with an unsupported kernel.

The launch event for the new OS featured luminaries from China’s tech ecosystem pledge to support KylinOS 11 and its adoption across the economy.

Interestingly, The Register can’t find references to the new OS supporting China’s proposed Bluetooth alternative or HDMI competitor. Both emerged in the last year, so maybe it’s too soon for their incorporation into the OS. ®