Landmark birthday for pioneering computer security research project

A research project that has developed from an ambitious research idea into a transformative approach to computer security will celebrate a landmark birthday this week.

Throughout February and March, the CHERI Research Centre has been running a series of events celebrating the CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions) project. The celebrations will culminate at the end of this week with a conference and a party to mark the project's 15th birthday. 

Developed here in collaboration with SRI International, CHERI has grown from an experimental architecture (see an early prototype, right) into a globally influential research programme that is reshaping the way hardware and software can work together to deliver memory safety and scalable software compartmentalisation.

Over the past decade and a half, CHERI has inspired new processor designs, informed industrial prototypes, and sparked international standardisation efforts.

Over the last five years, this has included Arm's Morello Programme, adoption by RISC-V International, and announced hardware products including secure microcontrollers such as Microsoft's CHERIoT and higher-end application cores such as those from Codasip.

Talks: from CHERI's first origins to its future directions

During February and March, the CHERI Research Centre has hosted a special series of talks reflecting on CHERI's origins, technical breakthroughs, and future directions.

Speakers have included members of the core research team alongside collaborators from academia, government, and industry. Together, they have been exploring the ideas that have powered CHERI's progress over the last fifteen years and the challenges still ahead as capability‑based security moves towards broader adoption.

Exhibition: telling the CHERI story (until 27 March)

Throughout March, the Department has featured a public exhibition celebrating the history of the CHERI project. Located here in the William Gates Building, the display includes early hardware prototypes, archive photographs, design artefacts, and narrative panels showing how CHERI evolved from its initial experiments to large‑scale industrial demonstrations such as Arm's Morello programme (see an Arm Morello evaluation board, right) as well as forthcoming RISC-V products.

The exhibition is designed to be accessible to a wide audience, whether visitors are students encountering CHERI for the first time or researchers curious about the project's development.

Workshop: Hands-on Introduction to CHERI and CHERIoT (25 March)

The CHERI Research Centre here, Codasip, and lowRISC have co-organised a comprehensive tutorial on CHERI alongside the CHERI Blossoms 2026 conference that takes place on 26-27 March.

Taking place on 25 March, It aims to introduce attendees – particularly students, researchers and developers from academia and industry – to CHERI and CHERIoT, memory safety and compartmentalization aspects of them, and hardware-software stacks involving CheriBSD, CHERI Linux and CHERIoT RTOS.

The material presented on the day will include presentations, CHERI and CHERIoT code examples and practical exercises that the participants will be given time to work on with assistance from the organisers.

For more details, including a full agenda, please visit the registration site.

CHERI Blossoms Conference – 26 and 27 March

The celebrations will culminate in CHERI Blossoms, a two‑day conference held on 26–27 March, organised jointly with CHERI Alliance, a non-profit industrial advocacy group.

The event will bring together researchers, engineers, policymakers, and industry practitioners who are shaping the future of capability‑secure computing.

With keynote talks, technical sessions, and panel discussions, the conference will highlight recent advancements and reflect on how far the community has come since CHERI's earliest days.

CHERI Blossoms will also provide an opportunity to look ahead to the next generation of capability‑based systems, including ongoing work on CHERI‑RISC‑V, CHERIoT for embedded systems, and the expanding ecosystem of tools, operating systems, and formally verified models.

As CHERI turns 15, these events offer a chance to celebrate the project's achievements, recognise the many contributors who have driven it forward, and inspire the next wave of research and innovation. The organisers look forward to welcoming visitors to the exhibition, talks and CHERI Blossoms conference.