Secure by Design: building cyber resilient chips for the UK’s hardware

Why chip security matters now 

The security of software often focuses on password strength, encryption, firewalls and patches. But every digital system ultimately runs on hardware, and unlike software, a weakness in silicon cannot be patched with an update. Fixing it could result in a costly redesign or a full product recall.  

That has never mattered more

Chips underpin critical infrastructure, defence, data centres and AI, so hardware resilience is now a matter of national resilience. AI is also making cyber attacks faster and more capable, and many of the most serious attacks exploit weaknesses in how chips handle memory. Chips themselves are also getting more complex. Many are now built from parts made by different suppliers, which makes it harder to check that every component can be trusted. And as the UK invests in AI hardware and data centres, there’s a window to build security in from the start rather than add it later. 

A growing UK priority 

The UK starts from a strong position. Through the Digital Security by Design programme, over £80 million of government funding and £200 million of industry co-investment have backed CHERI, a UK-developed technology that builds memory protection into the chip itself. 

Government is now building on this, through the AI Hardware Plan’s £18 million Hardware Security Programme, a commitment to lead research into hardware-enabled verification of AI, and the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. 

The challenge now is turning this leadership into secure products adopted at scale. 

What we’ll explore 

Bringing together techUK’s Semiconductor and Cyber Resilience programmes, this webinar will look at: 

• The risks: what are the biggest hardware vulnerabilities, and how are attacks changing? 

• The solutions: how secure by design architectures, verification and other innovations can protect chips, from design to supply chain, including against counterfeit parts. 

• Scaling up: what’s holding back wider adoption of technologies like CHERI? 

• The role of policy: how government can help make secure hardware the norm and strengthen the UK’s resilience. 

Who should attend 

Anyone working across semiconductors, AI and cyber security, including chip designers, security providers, data centre and critical infrastructure operators, investors, researchers and policymakers. 

Insights from the session will feed into techUK’s work on semiconductors, cyber resilience and frontier compute, including our engagement with government on the AI Hardware Plan. 

Speakers to be announced. For more information, contact elis.thomas@techuk.org and annie.collings@techuk.org