Confidential Computing is revolutionizing data security by protecting sensitive information during processing. The Anjuna Seaglass platform simplifies access to this technology, enabling secure collaboration and AI advancements, which is especially relevant in healthcare and semiconductor industries. M Ventures invested in Anjuna, recognizing its potential to unlock significant business value and drive innovation across industries.
Understanding Confidential Computing
In the digital era, protecting sensitive data is paramount. Data privacy concerns are escalating, especially due to recent hacks and leaks. Companies across all industries seek to generate business value from their data while ensuring its protection and enabling cross-company collaboration. Additionally, monumental advances in AI necessitate scalable solutions to protect valuable models in data centers, at the edge, and during remote deployments. Consequently, data protection has become a critical business topic, essential for growth in the years to come.
While encryption technologies have significantly improved the security of data at rest and in transit, data in use remains vulnerable. This security gap has led to the emergence of Confidential Computing, a groundbreaking approach designed to protect data during processing. By protecting data in use, organizations can confidently move their sensitive workloads to the cloud, leveraging its scalability and cost-efficiency without compromising security, and use the powerful toolkits available for multi-party collaboration, SaaS product deployment, and many more.
Confidential Computing leverages hardware-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to create isolated, secure areas within a processor. These TEEs protect data and code from unauthorized access or modification, even by privileged users such as system administrators or cloud providers. By ensuring that data remains encrypted during computation, Confidential Computing significantly enhances the security of sensitive information. The technology is supported by most chipsets from vendors like Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA, and available in most Cloud Services.
Anjuna and the Seaglass Platform for Universal Confidential Computing
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, Anjuna is at the forefront of the Confidential Computing revolution. Anjuna's flagship product, Seaglass, represents a significant leap in making Confidential Computing accessible and practical for enterprises of all sizes.
Anjuna Seaglass is the first Universal Confidential Computing Platform designed to run ANY application in ANY cloud environment AND WITH complete data security and privacy. It abstracts the complexities of the underlying infrastructure, enabling enterprises to deploy secure enclaves seamlessly across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Key features of Seaglass include:
· Universal Compatibility: Supports traditional, containerized, and Kubernetes-managed applications without the need for code modifications.
· Always-On Encryption: Protects data in use, at rest, and in transit with minimal performance overhead.
· Policy-Based Verification: Uses cryptographic attestation to ensure that only trusted code can access sensitive data.
· Ease of Deployment: Confidential Containers can be deployed with a single command, simplifying the integration process.
By providing a unified software solution that orchestrates, hardens, and simplifies the use of TEEs, Seaglass allows businesses to protect their data and applications against sophisticated threats effortlessly.
Use Cases in Healthcare and Semiconductor Industries
All industries where (multiparty) data has some intrinsic value will ultimately benefit from and may even require Confidential Computing. Being deeply rooted in the healthcare and semiconductor industries we highlight a few examples that are relevant to Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany[1].
· Secure AI and Machine Learning: Confidential Computing allows healthcare providers to train AI models on sensitive patient data without exposing it to unauthorized entities. This capability can lead to advancements in diagnostics and personalized treatment plans.
· Secure Data Collaboration: Multiple healthcare organizations can collaborate on research and data analysis sharing their respective data sets while ensuring patient data remains confidential, facilitating breakthroughs in medical research without compromising privacy.
· Secure manufacturing data: Yield of semiconductor manufacturing processes can be improved through analytics of data collected along the manufacturing value chain. Allowing secure collaboration on these local datasets can unlock millions of USD in savings.
· Protecting AI Models with Confidential Computing: Safeguarding AI models, particularly the weights of large language models (LLMs) is increasingly a national security interest and vital for survival of a growing number of companies. These models, where edge AI deployment might be desirable, are vulnerable to security breaches. Confidential Computing ensures that AI models and their weights are protected during processing. This security measure is essential in protecting intellectual property and preventing unauthorized access to AI models to maintain competitive and strategic advantages.
[1] Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany KGaA Darmstadt, Germany operates in the US and Canada under the brands EMD Electronics, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany Millipore and EMD Serono.
Why We Invested in Anjuna
At M Ventures, our investment philosophy centers on backing innovative technologies that promise to revolutionize industries and create significant value. Anjuna exemplifies this by leading the charge in Confidential Computing, a field we believe will become foundational to secure cloud computing.
We see tremendous potential in Anjuna's technology to transform how businesses approach data security. The Seaglass platform's ability to provide comprehensive protection for data in use addresses a critical gap in today's security landscape. Anjuna’s commitment to making Confidential Computing accessible and easy to deploy is a significant factor in our investment decision.
We invested in Anjuna because their technology not only meets the current security needs but is also adaptable to future challenges. The Seaglass platform's ability to integrate seamlessly with existing infrastructure without requiring code changes makes it an attractive solution for enterprises looking to enhance their security posture with minimal disruption.
Furthermore, Anjuna's strong leadership team, robust product offerings, and growing customer base in highly regulated industries like finance and healthcare validate their market potential. Anjuna’s innovative approach to Confidential Computing, combined with their practical solutions for real-world problems, aligns perfectly with our mission to support groundbreaking technologies that drive industry transformation.