What is confidential computing?

Confidential computing is a security technology focused on protecting "data-in-use." It utilizes a hardware-based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), often called a secure enclave, to isolate sensitive data and application code during processing. This ensures that data remains encrypted and inaccessible even to the host system's operating system, hypervisor, or cloud administrators. By creating a secure and isolated environment on the CPU or GPU, it secures both the hardware and the software running within it from external threats, complementing traditional data protection methods for data-at-rest (storage) and data-in-transit (network).

B. This describes the principles of Responsible AI or Trustworthy AI, which focuses on the ethical and societal impact of AI systems.

C. This defines AI Alignment, a field dedicated to ensuring that an AI's goals and behaviors are consistent with human values and intentions.

D. This refers to Multimodal AI, which is the capability of an AI system to process and understand information from multiple data types, such as text, images, and audio.

1. NVIDIA Corporation. (2023, April 12). What Is Confidential Computing? [Technical Blog]. NVIDIA. Retrieved from the NVIDIA Technical Blog. The article states, "Confidential computing is a security model that uses a hardware-based trusted execution environment (TEE)... This TEE protects data in use, preventing unauthorized access or modification of application code and data while the CPU is computing." This directly supports the concept of securing hardware and software.

2. NVIDIA Corporation. (2022, September). NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU Architecture (Whitepaper WP-10031-001v2.0). Page 31, Section "Confidential Computing". The document specifies, "The NVIDIA H100 GPU is NVIDIA’s first GPU with confidential computing capabilities... It protects the confidentiality and integrity of user data and application code while it is in use in the GPU." This confirms its role in securing software (code/data) via a hardware mechanism.