Important dates

4 September 2024
Applications open
3 December 2024
Applications close
2 January 2025
Research proposals due
12 February 2025
Notifications sent
1 October 2025
Course starts

Events

Upcoming events

We’ll be posting details of planned research showcase and industry round table events here.

Past events

At a special event in June 2024 we highlighted the work in Computer Architecture taking place in Cambridge — and discussed ways to build our future capacity in this field by creating this new Computer Architecture Research Centre for PhD students. Computer architecture is a critical area of computing: it underpins today's technologies and drives the next generation of computing systems.

Past, present and future of computer architecture

We're proud of our research and innovation in this field and excited about the advances yet to come in this rapidly changing area. At this event, we celebrated the past and present of computer architecture at Cambridge and discussed our plans to develop the research leaders of the future.

You can see videos of the presentations given on the day by following the links below:

As the first computer science department in the country (established over 80 years ago) our research helped lay the foundations of modern computing, building the first programmable computer to come into service and leading the early development of programming languages and operating systems. Today, we continue to innovate and advance the field in areas from AI to quantum computing to computer architecture.

A track record of innovation in computer architecture

Our collaboration with world-leading local microprocessor company Arm on the pioneering CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions) cybersecurity technology currently leads the UK Government’s £200+ million Digital Security by Design programme.

And among the 330 companies set up by our staff and alumni are open-source hardware company lowRISC, along with dividiti, Ellexus, Embecosm, Tenison Technology EDA and KRAI. All of these are directly related to the Department’s Computer Architecture group.

Our new Research Centre will draw on the breadth of supervisor experience from across the Department, allowing students freedom to explore the areas they're most passionate about, while addressing industry-relevant research.
– Prof Timothy Jones

At Cambridge, we attract the brightest students from across the world and we’re embedded within the Cambridge Cluster of over 5000 knowledge-intensive companies. This combination of academic expertise and industrial links means we’re very well equipped to train the next generation of engineers and seed the entrepreneurs of the future.