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⚙️ Towards a reference QEMU for CHERI platform emulation: An update from the CHERI QEMU Working Group ⚙️

QEMU is one of the most popular open source machine emulators, with support for many CPU architectures, including x86_64, Arm and RISC-V.

As of January 2026, we are excited to announce that the CHERI Alliance hosts a reference QEMU implementation that supports multiple modern hashtag#CHERI platforms based on Arm and RISC-V. These include the Arm Morello platform, the CHERI RISC-V standard draft 0.9.3 and the University of Cambridge RISC-V ISA v9. The CHERI Alliance reference implementation is an important milestone for future development and integration of CHERI support in QEMU.

We expect 2026 to be an exciting year for the CHERI Alliance and the CHERI QEMU community as a whole. With no shortage of work in sight, we would like to encourage members of the Alliance and any other organisation interested in CHERI to check out the latest developments.

🔗 Find out more: https://cheri-alliance.org/towards-a-reference-qemu-for-cheri-platform-emulation/