Why it matters

Regulated industries need private LLM inference. Understanding shapes future privacy tech.

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The architecture

HE: encrypt input; server computes on ciphertext; user decrypts result.

MPC: user + server compute jointly; neither sees other's data.

Secure inference optionsHomomorphic encryptioncompute on ciphertextMPCjoint computationConfidential computingtrusted enclaveHE + MPC very slow (1000x); confidential computing (TEE) more practical short term
Privacy tech options.
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How it works end to end

HE: currently 100-1000x slower. Research reducing overhead.

MPC: rounds of communication. Bandwidth-heavy.

Confidential computing (TEE): hardware trusted execution (Intel SGX, NVIDIA H100 CC). More practical short term.

Trade-off: privacy vs performance.