Abstract: Cryptographic computing, including fully homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs, are redefining how we think about privacy, security, and data sharing in the digital age. These transformative technologies promise breakthroughs, but are restrictive in that they are very difficult to use and too slow for general deployment. In this talk I’ll present an overview of my lab’s work on overcoming these challenges to usher in the age of practical cryptographic computing. This will include a collection of techniques to accelerate cryptographic computing with hardware accelerators, compilers for fully homomorphic encryption, and neural network optimizations. Combined, the research projects demonstrate how three orders of magnitude of performance improvement can be achieved and, with our highly-automated compiler infrastructure, the barrier to entry lowered to the point where high school students may use it.
Bio: Dr. Brandon Reagen is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at New York University with a focus on computer architecture. He leads a group of 8 PhD students whose current focus is to make cryptographic computing practical through algorithmic, compiler, and hardware optimizations for homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and secure multi-party computation. Prior to cryptographic computing, he made significant contributions to accelerator design and hardware for machine learning. The work has been recognized with the ASPLOS’25 Best Paper Award, and multiple best paper nominations, and Top Pick/honorable mention awards. He has further implemented many ideas, participating in multiple chip tape outs. He is actively a performer (and PI) on the DARPA DPRIVE and COOP programs, was recognized as a DARPA Riser in 2022, and won his NSF CAREER award in 2024. He is also now lead PI on the NSF CIRC Grand Cryptolets project. He has authored over 75 papers and holds one patent. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard, B.S. degrees in Computer Engineering and Applied Mathematics from UMass, Amherst.