China Develops UBIOS: An Alternative to UEFI for Electronic Devices

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China unveils UBIOS, a firmware standard to replace UEFI and legacy BIOS, aiming for independence from Western security architectures and broad device support.

Quick Report

China has developed a new system firmware standard called UBIOS (Unified Basic Input Output System) to eventually replace UEFI and legacy BIOS in its digital devices. The initiative is led by thirteen Chinese tech companies, including Huawei, Byosoft, and Kunlun Tech, under the oversight of the China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI).

UBIOS is designed to support all contemporary hardware standards, including chiplets and heterogeneous computing, and is compatible with modern architectures such as x86, Arm, RISC-V, and LoongArch. The standard aims to decouple Chinese devices from Western-developed firmware and security architectures, providing an independent root of trust. UBIOS will be adopted across servers, PCs, consumer electronics, network infrastructure, automobiles, and IoT devices, with support planned for indigenous Linux distributions. It is not yet clear if UBIOS will be open to foreign firmware vendors like Insyde, AMI, or Award.

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Source(s)

  • TPU