The rumours started after a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Google, who reportedly helms the Android Systems Team and tinkers with Android's Linux kernel fork, has lobbed a series of patches into the AOSP mix that effectively "remove ACK's support for riscv64."

The nitty-gritty of these patches reveals that "support for risc64 GKI kernels is discontinued."

For those not in the know, ACK, or Android Common Kernel, is Google's curated selection of Linux kernels from kernel.org, spruced up with a few "patches of interest to the Android community" that haven't quite cut mainline or Long-Term Supported (LTS) kernels.

It's a veritable smorgasbord of branches, with android-mainline leading the charge, forking into "GKI" kernel branches tailored to specific Linux kernel and Android OS version pairings. GKI, standing for Generic Kernel Image, is the kernel du jour for certified Android devices, as Google's rubber stamp of approval hasn't yet extended to devices flaunting a mainline Linux kernel build.

The plot thickens as these patches give RISC-V kernel support the boot, along with RISC-V kernel build and emulator support. This leaves companies itching to compile a RISC-V build of Android in a bit of a pickle, as they'll now have to go it alone, forking Linux and stitching in the necessary ACK and RISC-V patches.

With Google's certification process currently hitched to GKI kernels born from an ACK branch, the prospect of certified Android builds on RISC-V hardware seems as distant as a British summer.

Initial musings pegged these patches as Google's adieu to RISC-V support in Android, but a Google spokesperson insisted that Android will continue to support RISC-V.

“Due to the rapid iteration rate, we are not ready to provide a single supported image for all vendors. This particular series of patches removes RISC-V support from the Android Generic Kernel Image (GKI)," the spokesgoogle said.

This suggests a mountain of work looms before Android can cosy up to RISC-V. Even when that day dawns, Google will be back on the drawing board, adding RISC-V support into the kernel.

In short, Google's latest move likely spells a longer wait for those yearning to see commercial Android devices powered by RISC-V chips.