ARM, Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient today announced the creation of a joint venture dedicated to delivering a secure environment for services running on connected devices, such as tablets, smart-TVs, games consoles and smartphones. The joint venture, which is subject to regulatory approval, will provide a secure environment for a new wave of advanced services to flourish, based on easy to use, accessible and consistent device security. Technology developed by the joint venture will be based on established solutions from the founding companies.

Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient are both companies and long-standing ARM partners that offer security solutions to governments and for the financial and mobile industries. Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient have agreed to contribute their respective software expertise to the joint venture. All three companies will contribute assets to the new venture, including patents, software, people, cash and capital equipment. ARM will own 40% of the joint venture, with Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient each owning 30%.

The new venture will focus on improving security for smart connected devices by developing a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) based on the established ARM TrustZone security technology. This common, secure environment for software execution will utilize advanced hardware security coupled with industry standard software interfaces, such as those from the GlobalPlatform industry association.

Devices with a TEE will enable consumers to use their smart, connected devices more frequently to access an applications and services in a secure way. This includes mobile payment, enterprise productivity and mobile banking applications, as well as online commerce and premium content services.