Google Unveils Open-Source Toolchain for Encrypted AI Processing

Google has released HEIR, an open-source compiler toolchain designed to help developers run AI models on encrypted data without decrypting the underlying information. This technology is part of Google's Private Computing Toolkit, which aims to reduce the expertise required to implement homomorphic encryption.

The tool allows computations to be performed on encrypted data, enabling a service to process sensitive information without accessing the underlying data. Google demonstrated HEIR through four private-inference applications compiled with the toolchain: a content recommendation model, a credit-card fraud detector, an intrusion detection system, and a hotword detector.

Google collaborated with universities and hardware acceleration companies in developing the project. Its research partners include Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, UC Santa Barbara, Purdue University, and the University of Edinburgh.