Leeds, 2 December 2024: Optalysys, a company enabling the future of secure computing, has partnered with Zama, the open source cryptography company building state-of-the-art FHE solutions for blockchain and AI, to advance the development of Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). The partnership will see the integration of Zama’s FHE solution with Optalysys’ hardware acceleration product range, Enable, to expedite FHE adoption for its customers. 

Zama’s software solutions provide powerful tools that enable a wide range of cutting edge applications for FHE, including encrypted machine learning and advanced confidentiality in blockchain smart contracts. As sectors worldwide, such as financial services, healthcare and defence, adopt and integrate more digital technologies, the risks associated with cyber threats grow significantly. Current cybersecurity solutions have significant limitations in protecting data in use, which is why the adoption of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) such as FHE, are fundamental for companies in protecting sensitive data. FHE is an advanced, quantum-resilient cryptography method that allows encrypted data to be processed without ever needing to be decrypted. It allows organisations to process data whilst maintaining privacy, opening up opportunities for safe collaboration across industries, even in untrusted environments.

The partnership aims to bridge the gap in FHE adoption by addressing its historically high computational demands. Integrating Zama’s software solutions with Optalysys’ Enable technology will maintain the ease of use of Zama products for developers while providing access to faster and more scalable FHE application deployments. It will allow the use of encrypted data for high-security applications across various sectors. 

Dr Nick New, CEO of Optalysys, said, “Our partnership with Zama is a significant step for us as we continue to accelerate the development of FHE. Historically, scaling FHE applications has been a challenge due to its demand for specialist infrastructure and computing power. Our work with Zama aims to overcome this barrier and enable us to develop this revolutionary technology at a rapid pace.”

Rand Hindi, CEO, Zama, said, “At Zama, our mission is to equip developers with the best FHE tools — tools that are easy to use, practical, and fast. Our collaboration with Optalysys is an exciting step toward making FHE faster, a crucial milestone in our journey to make this technology ubiquitous.

“We believe that this acceleration benefits machine learning applications and is equally transformative in the blockchain space, a key focus for us, where FHE has the unique ability to resolve the long-standing tension between transparency and confidentiality, unlocking new possibilities for privacy-preserving innovation onchain."

ENDS

About Optalysys

Founded in Leeds, UK, Optalysys enables the future of secure compute by processing encrypted data at scale, without it being decrypted. It does this by using the power of advanced silicon photonics to enable Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a cryptographic technology to allow organisations to securely commercialise their data. Founded in 2013 by Dr. Nick New (CEO) and Robert Todd (CTO), Optalysys has raised funding from investors including Northern Gritstone, Lingotto, Verve Ventures and imec.xpand. Its most recent round was a £21m Series A in July 2023. For more information, please visit https://optalysys.com/ 

About Zama

Zama is an open source cryptography company building state-of-the-art FHE solutions for blockchain and AI. Their technology enables a broad range of use cases, from confidential smart contracts to encrypted machine learning and privacy-preserving cloud applications. Founded by Pascal Paillier, a pioneer in FHE, and Rand Hindi, a serial privacy entrepreneur, Zama leads the way in the development and implementation of homomorphic encryption technology.

For more information , visit https://www.zama.ai/

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