Intel joins DARPA programme to drive fully homomorphic encryption - the 'final frontier' in data privacy

Fully homomorphic encryption allows applications to work with encrypted data without ever needing to decrypt it during analysis

Chip-maker Intel announced on Monday that it has signed an agreement with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to participate in its Data Protection in Virtual Environments (DPRIVE) programme.

DARPA's DPRIVE programme aims to tackle the 'final frontier' in data privacy by creating an accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), enabling applications to work with encrypted data and process information without needing to decrypt the data during analysis.

The FHE, as a theoretical concept, has been around for more than four decades, although it has been realised only in the last 20 years. In 2009, researchers at IBM came up with the first successful demonstration of the technology, although it was too slow to be practically applicable.

FHE is a form of cryptography that enables computations on encrypted data without the computing party ever knowing the exact nature of the underlying dataset. Mathematical operations are performed on always-encrypted data (or cryptograms), and the result obtained is also encrypted, being the same as if the mathematical operations had been carried out an unencrypted version of the data.

The technology could prove extremely useful in various industries, including finance, banking, healthcare and government, enabling organisations to easily share confidential data with each other without the risk of exposing it to hackers.

However, a main technical obstacle in the development of FHE technology is that it requires a large amount of computing power - a challenge that Intel wants to tackle.

Intel's goal is to develop a dedicated application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that will be optimised for FHE to reduce the computational overhead over current CPU-based methods. The target is to cut processing time by up to five orders of magnitude from existing techniques.

Researchers will also design accelerator architectures that are scalable, flexible and programmable.

The efforts will involve multiple groups across Intel, including Intel Labs, the Data Platforms Group and the Design Engineering Group.

As part of the multi-year project, Intel is also collaborating with Microsoft, which will test Intel's technology it in its cloud offerings, including Azure and JEDI cloud, with the US government.

Microsoft will also work with Intel and DARPA to develop standards and guidelines around FHE and to eventually commercialise the technology.

"We are pleased to bring our expertise in cloud computing and homomorphic encryption to the DARPA DPRIVE programme," said Dr William Chappell, chief technology officer, Azure Global, and vice president, Mission Systems, Microsoft.

Chappell added that the technology, when fully developed, will help Microsoft customers "close the last-mile gap in data confidentiality - keeping data fully secure and private, whether in storage, transit or use".