IBM researchers to publish FHE challenges on the FHERMA platform

To
foster
innovation
in
fully
homomorphic
encryption
(FHE),
IBM®
researchers
have
begun
publishing
challenges
on
the

FHERMA
platform
for
FHE
challenges
launched
in
late
2023
by
Fair
Math
and
the
OpenFHE
community.

FHE:
A
new
frontier
in
technology

Fully
homomorphic
encryption
is
a
groundbreaking
technology
with
immense
potential.
One
of
its
notable
applications
lies
in
enhancing
medical
AI
models.
By
enabling
various
research
institutes
to
collaborate
seamlessly
in
the
training
process,
FHE
opens
doors
to
a
new
era
of
possibilities.
The
ability
to
process
encrypted
data
without
decryption
marks
a
pivotal
advancement,
promising
to
revolutionize
diverse
fields.

IBM
has
been
working
to
advance
the
domain
of
FHE
for
15
years,
since
IBM
Research
scientist
Craig
Gentry
introduced
the
first
plausible
fully
homomorphic
scheme
in
2009.
The
“bootstrapping”
mechanism
he
developed
cleans
and
reduces
the
amount
of
“noise”
in
encoded
information,
which
made
possible
the
widespread
use
of
FHE
commercially.

Progress
in
FHE

FHE
has
experienced
significant
progress
since
the
introduction
of
its
first
scheme.
The
transition
from
theoretical
frameworks
to
practical
implementations
has
been
marked
by
countless
issues
that
need
to
be
addressed.
While
there
are
already
applications
that
are
using
FHE,
the
community
is
constantly
improving
and
innovating
the
algorithms
to
make
FHE
more
popular
and
applicable
to
new
domains.

Fostering
innovation
through
challenges

The
FHERMA
platform
was
built
to
incentivize
innovation
in
the
FHE
domain.
Various
challenges
can
be
seen
on
the

FHERMA
site.
The
challenges
are
motivated
by
problems
encountered
by
real-world
machine
learning
and
blockchain
applications.

Solutions
to
challenges
must
be
written
by
using
known
cryptographic
libraries
such
as
openFHE.
The
developers
can
also
use
higher-level
libraries
such
as
IBM’s
HElayers
to
speed
up
their
development
and
easily
write
robust
and
generic
code.

The
best
solutions
to
the
various
challenges
will
win
cash
prizes
from
Fair
Math,
alongside
contributing
to
the
FHE
community.
Winners
will
also
be
offered
the
opportunity
to
present
their
solutions
in
a
special
workshop
currently
being
planned.

The
goal
of
the
challenges
is
to
foster
research,
popularize
FHE,
and
develop
cryptographic
primitives
that
are
efficient,
generic,
and
support
different
hyperparameters
(for
example,
writing
matrix
multiplication
that
is
efficient
for
matrices
of
dimensions
1000×1000
and
10×10).
This
aligns
with
IBM’s
vision
for
privacy-preserving
computation
by
using
FHE.

Driving
progress
and
adoption

Introducing
and
participating
in
challenges
that
are
listed
on
the
FHERMA
site
is
an
exciting
and
rewarding
way
to
advance
the
extended
adoption
of
FHE,
while
helping
to
move
development
and
research
in
the
domain
forward.
We
hope
you
join
us
in
this
exciting
endeavor
on
the

FHERMA
challenges
platform.

Teams
and
individuals
who
successfully
solve
the
challenges
will
receive
cash
prizes
from
Fair
Math.
More
importantly,
the
innovative
solutions
to
the
published
challenges
will
help
move
the
FHE
community
forward—a
longstanding
goal
for
IBM.

Explore
IBM
HElayers
today