CHERI Blossoms Conference 2026

Pre-Conference Tutorial: 25 March 2026

Main Conference Date: 26 – 27 March 2026

Location: Department of Computer Science and Technology – William Gates Building, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Thank you to all who attended!

You can find details about CHERI Blossoms 2027 here.

CHERI Blossoms 2026

Conference Overview

The CHERI Blossoms Conference 2026 was the must-attend event for forward-thinking decision-makers and innovators! This exclusive gathering was tailored for industry leaders, business strategists, product managers, researchers and technologists, who are poised to influence the future of digital security by design.

At this premier event, participants had the unique opportunity to engage with top experts and gain firsthand insights into the latest developments using CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions) technology. Participants discovered how these cutting-edge advancements are revolutionizing the creation of resilient, secure systems and learn how integrating these innovations can provide a competitive edge for your organization.

Over 100 people attended the livestream via Zoom.

The CHERI Research Centre at the Computer Laboratory, Codasip, and lowRISC hosted a hands-on tutorial the day before CHERI Blossoms 2026. Designed for students, researchers, and developers, the session covered CHERI and CHERIoT, memory safety, compartmentalisation, and related hardware-software stacks, with presentations, code examples, and guided exercises.

Pre-Conference Tutorial: Hands-on Introduction to CHERI and CHERIoT

The CHERI Research Centre at the Computer Laboratory, Codasip, and lowRISC co-organised a comprehensive tutorial on CHERI alongside the conference.

The agenda for the tutorial can be found on the tutorial webpage.

Agenda

The main conference ran over two consecutive days (Thursday and Friday), with the exhibition space open throughout.

Each day of the conference had a distinct focus:

Pre-Conference Tutorial (Wednesday 25th March 2026)

Main Conference – Day 1 (Thursday 26th March 2026)

  • Keynotes and general / business-focused sessions
  • CHERI Project 15th Birthday Party (including a light dinner)

Main Conference – Day 2 (Friday 27th March 2026)

  • Technical sessions

Recordings & Slides

Playlist

35 Videos
Talk TitleAuthorOrganisationVideoSlidesSpeaker
CHERI crash course - high-level introductionRobert WatsonUniversity of Cambridge
Keynote – CHERI: quantifying the value of a strategic imperativeOllie WhitehouseNational Cyber Security Centre
Featured MessageKathleen FisherARIA

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Keynote – Memory Safety at Scale: An Industry PerspectiveAlex RebertGoogle
Keynote – Getting ready for the CRA: from compliance to confidenceMaika FöhrenbachEuropean Commission (DG CONNECT)

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DSIT messageBradley FinnDSIT
UKRI messageJohn GoodacreUKRI

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Progress of the AllianceMike EftimakisCHERI Alliance
CHERI Research CentreRobert WatsonCHERI Research Centre
The Capable Hub: Our Recent Work and Next StepsAndrew MurrayThe Capable Hub
CHERI Adoption studyAdam FinneyCHERI Alliance

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Accelerating commercial adoption of CHERIManu RavishankarPA Consulting
A new analysis of CVE vulnerabilities : trends, changes and CHERICarl ShawCodasip
CHERI Mocha: an open-source memory-safe application systemJavier Orensanz MartinezlowRISC
BT business keynoteDave HarcourtBT

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ETSI Standardisation statusPaul WallerNCSC

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RISC-V: Driving the Future of Open ComputeAndy MooreRISC-V International
CHERI RISC-V Standardisation StatusTariq KurdCodasip

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BT's Engagement with CHERI TechnologySam CaterBT
Inside the CHERI in SoC Working GroupBen FletcherCHERI Alliance
MMU-based revocation for temporal safety on CHERI application coresTariq Kurd / Alfredo MazzinghiCodasip / Capabilities Limited
COSMIC verification: comprehensive, end-to-end formal proofs of CVA6-CHERILouis-Emile Ploix / Marno van der MaaslowRISC CIC
CHERI is being standardised, so why do we still need to do research?Simon MooreUniversity of Cambridge
Lightning talk - CHERIoT-KuduDavid Chisnall
SCI Semiconductor
Lightning talk - Portable CHERI OS APIs Paul MetzgerUniversity of Cambridge

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Lightning talk - CHERI-PIT: Port Integrity ToolDavid MuslinerSIFT
Lightning talk - CHERI-ZephyrJennifer JacksonUniversity of Birmingham
Lightning talk - Microservice StoreMurat CakmakMicroservice Store
Performance Progress of CVA6-CHERIJonathan WoodruffCapabilities Limited
CHERI performance improvement updateCarl ShawCodasip
Securing Real-Time Communication: Porting and running Edge Computing for mission critical services on Morello CHERIPeter Cox / Alexander VoevodaUM Labs
Rust on CHERIoTEdoardo MarangoniSCI Semiconductor
CHERI Linking through the AgesJohn Baldwin / Jessica ClarkeArarat River Consulting, LLC / University of Cambridge
Verifying Secure Memory Compartmentalization in CHERI Processors at the RTLJohannes MüllerRPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau
CHERI-enabled RISC-V VP: Capabilities and ApplicationsLuca MüllerGerman Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
Anonymous TitleMerve Gülmez / Thomas NymanEricsson

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Towards Heterogeneous CHERI CompartmentalizationJianyi ChengUniversity of Edinburgh
All-Caps — Extending Capabilities Across the Whole SoCSamuel StarkUniversity of Cambridge

Venue

CHERI Blossoms 2026 was held in Cambridge UK, at the Department of Computer Science and Technology in the William Gates Building, on the University of Cambridge’s West Cambridge site, located off Madingley Road.

Address

William Gates Building

15 JJ Thomson Ave

Cambridge CB3 0FD

William Gates building - Outside view
CHERI Blossoms 2026 Robert Watson giving a talk