Developer Alexander Graf managed to use the ARM version of Windows on a Mac with M1, proving that the M1 chip can actually use the Microsoft operating system, and that, as Craig Federighi said, that it can be done without problems is a Microsoft decision. must do
Currently, Macs with the M1 system on chip are not compatible with Windows and there is no equivalent Boot Camp application like Intel Macs.
Using the QEMU open source virtualizer, Graf was able to virtualize the ARM version of Windows on Apple's M1 chip, without the need to emulate anything. As he said in his tweet, once virtualized on a Mac with M1 “the Windows ARM64 operating system can handle x86 applications quite well. It's not as fast as Rosetta 2, but it comes close ».
Graf was able to use the Windows ARM64 Insider Preview version by virtualizing it via Hypervisor.framework. According to Apple, this framework allows users to interact with virtualization technologies without having to write kernel extensions (KEXT).
Graf applied a custom patch to the QEMU virtualizer, known for "near native performance" by running guest code directly on the CPU. This means that the ARM version of Windows can be virtualized on Mac M1 with excellent performance.
