IBM and AMD today announced a multi-year development agreement to enhance the security and artificial intelligence offerings of both companies. The effort builds on open-source software, open standards and open system architectures to drive Confidential Computing in the cloud (see below) and support accelerators across high-performance computing and enterprise critical capabilities such as virtualization and encryption, according to the companies.
“The commitment of AMD to technological innovation aligns with our mission to develop and accelerate the adoption of the hybrid cloud to help connect, secure and power our digital world,” said Dario Gil, director of IBM Research. “IBM is focused on giving our clients choice, agility and security in our hybrid cloud offerings through advanced research, development and scaling of new technologies.”
“This agreement between AMD and IBM aligns well with our long-standing commitment to collaborating with leaders in the industry,” said Mark Papermaster, EVP and CTO, AMD. “AMD is excited to extend our work with IBM on AI, accelerating data center workloads, and improving security across the cloud.”
For many companies, securing highly sensitive data remains a challenge: cybersecurity is a major barrier for adoption as well as the top criteria for selection of cloud providers, according to IBM’s Institute for Business Value. According to Gartner, Confidential Computing — a security mechanism that protects code and data from the host system by making critical information invisible to third parties, including the host — potentially removes the remaining barrier to hybrid cloud adoption for highly regulated businesses or any organization concerned about unauthorized access to data-in-use in public clouds.
Confidential Computing is a technology, enabled by hardware, that allows the data associated with a running virtual machine to be encrypted, including while workloads are running. For hybrid cloud, it has the potential to unlock potential for enterprise
adoption of hybrid cloud computing, especially in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and insurance.
AMD and IBM researchers have begun work on joint development activities under the agreement, according to the companies.
source: IBM and AMD
