Hardware-enabled security is essential to maintaining the integrity of valuable AI workloads.
By Gary Hilson, EETimes (January 23, 2023)
The idea of baking security into an application isn’t new in the software world, nor are security features in semiconductor technologies, such as memory. But the value of data, particularly in artificial-intelligence (AI) workloads, means hardware-enabled security is getting more attention.
Many networking and memory technologies have built-in security features — the “S” in SD card stands for secure, and SSDs have long had the ability to encrypt data. The key challenges for enabling hardware-level security features, however, are educating users on how to implement them and ensuring that security doesn’t hinder performance of the device and the overall system.
Although hardware-enabled security has been around for a while, securing AI workloads is a relatively new concept, said Carl Shaw, safety and security architect at Codasip, a company that focuses on processor design automation and RISC-V processor IP.