UAE launches first secure cloud technologies project
The UAE’S first secure cloud technologies programme will boost advanced technologies that enhance data privacy and cloud encryption schemes
Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), on Monday announced that its Cryptography Research Centre (CRC) has launched the UAE’S first secure cloud technologies programme which will boost advanced technologies that enhance data privacy and cloud encryption schemes.
TII said that its secure cloud technologies programme aims to advance Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETS), including fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), a form of encryption that permits users to perform computations on encrypted data without first decrypting it, and secure multi-party computation (MPC), creating methods for parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs while keeping those inputs private.
This line of research will be coupled with the field of verifiable computation for Machine Learning, to cater for a proof of correctness for an Inference-as-a-service use case when data privacy is not required.
The research team in-charge is also joining efforts with the hardware cryptography team to develop FHE hardware accelerators to offload certain computing tasks onto specialised hardware components within the system, enabling greater efficiency.
Commenting on the announcement, Faisal Al Bannai, Secretary-general of the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), said, “Cloud computing has undergone significant growth in the last decade which has raised security and privacy challenges. Traditional approaches still require data to be decrypted for processing and a cloud-centralised key management system, thus exposing both the data and the secret key to cloud providers. This underscores the importance of launching this programme by our researchers at TII’S Cryptography Research Centre.”
Dr Najwa Aaraj, Chief Researcher at the Cryptography Research Centre, said, “FHE allows performing arbitrarily complex, dynamically chosen computations on data while it remains encrypted despite not having the secret decryption key. Moreover, FHE is a key enabler for multiparty computation (MPC) protocols implementing oblivious federated learning models, which are on the rise in critical infrastructure data transfer.”
“TII’S implementation of secret sharing-based MPC leverages FHE building blocks for providing active security and optimised preprocessing to speed up the oblivious implementation of Machine Learning models,” she said.
Cryptography Research Centre, one of seven initial dedicated research centres at Technology Innovation Institute, employs and collaborates with scientists in multiple cryptography fields such as post-quantum cryptography, hardwarebased cryptography, lightweight cryptography, cryptanalysis, cryptographic protocols, and cloud encryption schemes, amongst others. The Centre is also among the few internationally that brings together theoretical and applied cryptographers in a research-oriented seting. The cryptographers collaborate on breakthrough research projects that lead to innovative outcomes.
In March, Moro Hub (Data Hub Integrated Solutions LLC), a subsidiary of Digital Dewa, the digital arm of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), deployed Google Cloud’s Anthos, from its first solar-powered Green Data Centre in the region. Google Anthos is a hybrid and multi-cloud plaform designed to enable cloud migration, application modernisation, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud management.
Moro Hub’s adoption of Anthos will make it available locally in Moro Hub’s Data Centre.
Anthos will enable Moro Hub to build and deploy apps fast and scale effectively without compromising security or increasing complexity.
Commenting on this collaboration, Marwan Bin Haidar, Vice Chairman of Moro Hub, had said, “Our engagement with Google Cloud to deploy the phenomenal benefits of Anthos marks a milestone for Moro Hub. Anthos is well-aligned with our vision to be the digital transformation hub of choice for our customers and partners. Anthos gives us an innovative multi-cloud and hybrid cloud app modernisation plaform to build and deliver new services for our customers.”
As a Dubai 10X enabler, Moro Hub’s mission from its inception has been to support the UAE’S digital goals and stay ahead of the competition.