BELFORT ASIC - Pioneering Hardware Acceleration for Computing on Encrypted Data

Objective

Belfort develops breakthrough hardware acceleration for Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a cryptographic technology that allows computation directly on encrypted data. This solves one of the most pressing problems in digital society: today, encrypted sensitive data must be decrypted before processing, exposing it to theft, misuse, or breaches while 'in use'. In finance, healthcare, government, and cloud computing, this creates a “data in use” security gap where the most sensitive information is most vulnerable. FHE closes this gap by enabling operations on encrypted data without ever revealing the underlying information. Medical records can be analyzed without disclosure, financial institutions can detect fraud without exposing customer data, and governments can collaborate across borders without compromising sovereignty. Its potential is transformative, but until now FHE has been impractical: on conventional Central Processing Units (CPUs) it can run up to 100,000 times slower than ordinary computation, making it too costly and energy-intensive to use at scale. Belfort’s innovation changes this. Building on ERC-funded research, we are developing a dedicated Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) accelerator for encrypted computing. It introduces patented architectural breakthroughs that cut the time, cost, and energy of FHE operations by 50–200× compared to current FPGA prototype, and up to 2000× compared to CPUs. Unlike competing approaches, Belfort integrates seamlessly with leading FHE software, enabling immediate adoption without rewriting applications. By making encrypted computing fast, affordable, and energy-efficient, Belfort unlocks privacy-preserving AI, finance, healthcare, and cloud services. This project establishes the foundation for the first commercially viable FHE accelerator, transforming encrypted computing from promise into practice and strengthens EU leadership in privacy-enhancing technologies against US and Asian initiatives.