To support FHE workloads, Intel has released a pioneering hardware accelerator called Heracles, built especially for Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). This exciting new technology was previewed at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) recently held in San Francisco. With Heracles, we hope to change the way data is secured and processed, allowing computations on encrypted data to occur at speeds like never before.
Heracles accelerates FHE computing workloads by an astounding 5,000 times compared to leading Intel server CPUs. That would be a tremendous advancement in the discipline. To visualize the scale, the device is one-tenth the size of even the smallest of the new Large Language Models (LLMs). This small footprint underscores its ability for ease of integration into a variety of applications.
Combined with cutting-edge 3-nanometer FinFET technology and high-bandwidth memory, Heracles maximizes performance per watt. The accelerator features 64 x86-64 compute cores in a two-dimensional eight-by-eight grid. This unique structure allows it to perform intricate calculations with astounding speed. Figure 4 — Design with an on-chip 2D mesh network. This network interconnecting the tiles with large 512-byte-wide buses leading to each tile provides a data transfer and processing capability at alarming rates.
Performance Breakthroughs
Heracles roars along at a blistering 1.2 gigahertz frequency. Proprietary intellectual property like this chip’s magic FHE transformations takes as little as 39 microseconds. This astonishingly fast speed allows the accelerator to complete operations in seconds that ordinary CPUs would require an impractical number of hours or days to perform. Heracles achieved the remarkable milestone of confirming 100 million voter ballots in under 23 minutes. As a point of comparison, an Intel Xeon CPU at 3.5 GHz would require approximately 17 days to complete the same task.
The architecture of Heracles incorporates three synchronized streams of instructions that work simultaneously: one for moving data onto and off the processor, another for data movement within the processor, and a third for executing the mathematical computations. This focused strategy maximizes both the leverage of the accelerator and the achievement of the accelerator’s purpose. In addition, it paves the way to real world applications in cloud and AI infrastructure.
“The world’s first commercially viable FHE accelerator, designed to enable encrypted computations at speeds practical for real-world cloud and AI infrastructure.” – Niobium
Technical Specifications
Heracles’ most impressive feat is not strength but rather its efficiency and thus its impact with respect to its resource allocation. For starters, it comes with a jaw-dropping 48 GB of cutting-edge high-bandwidth memory. This memory has links between them that are able to transmit an astounding 819 GB/sec. In addition, it is flanked by two 24-gigabyte high-bandwidth memory chips, all contained in its liquid-cooled package.
These design choices show an impressive grasp of existing technological limitations, as well as future requirements. Sanu Mathew emphasized the importance of balancing data movement and numerical processing, stating, “It’s all about balancing the movement of data with the crunching of numbers.” Finding this balance is key to delivering the highest performance possible while data is still kept confidential during computation.
“When Intel starts talking about scale, that usually carries quite a bit of weight.” – Kurt Rohloff
Industry Impact and Future Prospects
The release of Heracles represents an exciting new milestone in our ongoing work to usher in scalable encryption solutions. Ro Cammarota remarked on the company’s commitment to innovation: “We have proven and delivered everything that we promised.” This line reaffirms Intel’s beliefs that Heracles is a revolutionary product within the data encryption industry.
In the meantime, all industries are under increasing pressure to protect consumer data. Solutions like Heracles that can meet these needs head on are already out there and ready to do so. Nick New noted the potential for future advancements: “We’re looking at pushing way past that digital limit,” indicating that this technology may be just the beginning of what is possible in encrypted computing.
“This is like the first microprocessor… the start of a whole journey.” – Sanu Mathew