ALICE is preparing a major upgrade for 2021. All subdetectors upgrading their counting room DAQ electronics will use a common hardware to receive physics data: the Common Readout Unit (CRU). The CRU is a PC based readout card featuring an Intel Arria 10 FPGA, up to 48 full duplex optical links with a maximum line rate of 10 Gbit/s, and a Gen3 x16 PCIe interface for host connectivity. The same CRU will also distribute the LHC clock and trigger synchronously to most of the upgrading subdetectors (to ~7800 front end cards). Details of the CRU readout card, its usage in ALICE, and the current status and future plans for hardware production, FPGA firmware, and readout software will be presented.