BSC Spinoff to Secure Chips for Critical Infrastructure

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) have launched Safe and Secure Technologies, a spinoff focused on designing secure chips for critical infrast... Read original →

The BSC-UPC spinoff isn’t just another startup—it’s Europe weaponizing RISC-V to reclaim hardware sovereignty. Its 'Safety Island' forces a fundamental redesign of processor security interfaces: once hardware-level behavioral auditing becomes standard in critical infrastructure, closed models like Arm TrustZone or Intel SGX face existential compliance risk. Though the EU Chips Act avoids explicit localization mandates, procurement policies are shifting toward ‘auditable-by-design’ chips, raising barriers for non-European IP. Expect U.S. EDA giants to acquire European security IP firms preemptively, while TSMC’s 3nm EUV fabs may lose EU-bound orders if they fail upcoming hardware provenance audits. Within 18 months, this venture’s real impact won’t be revenue—it’ll be setting the technical baseline for the EU’s ‘trusted chip’ certification, effectively redefining global security standards from Brussels.