With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and big data technologies, data has become a key production factor, and data security and privacy protection have become important security issues that need to be urgently addressed. As the core key technology for ensuring data security in the digital era, confidential computing has become a crucial fulcrum for balancing the release of data value and privacy protection. It holds significant strategic importance for safeguarding national digital sovereignty and promoting the development of the digital economy. As one of the member units and management committee units of the GCC Confidential Computing Special Committee of the Global Computing Alliance, Nanhu Laboratory has achieved remarkable results in the field of confidential computing. In this issue of the GCC Lounge, we visited this new research and development institution located by the South Lake in Jiaxing, and had a deep conversation with Deputy Director Jiang Tingting about its exploration and practice in the field of confidential computing.

Now, let's take a look at the unique experiences of the team building, standard formulation and future layout of the South Lake Laboratory in the field of confidential computing through the interview with Deputy Director Jiang Tingting. 

During the interview, Director Jiang Tingting also revealed to us the "three forces" that Nanhu Laboratory uses to attract high-end talents, providing a model for talent development that can be learned from - 

Strategic Attraction: Creating a National-level Innovation Platform 

The Nanhu Laboratory uses the national-level major research projects as the "strong magnetic field", providing a practical platform for talents to participate in national strategic demands. It attracts global talents who are determined to achieve breakthroughs in original, leading, and disruptive research. This strategic positioning that combines individual academic pursuits with national development needs not only enables researchers to gain a sense of achievement in overcoming key technologies, but also enables them to accumulate top industry resources in major projects, forming a virtuous cycle of "project attracting talents, talents promoting research". 

Ecological competitiveness: Establishing an innovative "flexible talent attraction" mechanism 

Technology Leadership: From National Standards to Industrial Application Innovation

Collaborative innovation achievements under the GCC framework 

As an important member of the GCC CC-SIG, Nanhu Laboratory actively participates in industrial collaboration and plays a crucial role in standard formulation and industrial practice.

In the integration of theoretical research and industrial demands, Nanhu Laboratory participated in the compilation of the "White Paper on Confidential Computing (2024)" and is currently leading the formulation of the "Remote Proof Standard for Confidential Computing" and the "Standard for Trusted Data Space Based on Confidential Computing". It is actively providing the industry with systematic technical frameworks and application guidelines. In addition, the "Data Trustful Circulation Platform Scheme Based on Confidential Computing" submitted by Nanhu Laboratory was also selected for the "Global Computing Industry Case Compilation (GMVPS)" in 2024, verifying the validity of its technical solution in practical scenarios and highlighting the important role of Nanhu Laboratory in the GCC ecosystem. 

Multilevel Layout: Problem-oriented - Policy Response - International Strategy 

Since its establishment five years ago, Nanhu Laboratory has achieved numerous significant results, having a profound impact on the development of the global computing industry. During the dialogue, Director Jiang Tingting also revealed to us the industry status and international background on which Nanhu Laboratory bases its undertaking of these important tasks. 

In today's era of accelerated digital economy penetration, the value of data as a key production factor is increasingly evident. However, the lack of unified standards in the industry has led to high development costs, a lack of credibility in security verification, and poor cross-platform interoperability. These series of data security and privacy protection challenges are becoming prominent pain points that hinder industrial upgrading. 

In response to this industry bottleneck, the country has issued the "Action Plan for the Development of Trustworthy Data Space (2024-2028)" to guide the industry and clearly requires the establishment of a trustworthy data circulation system. Nanhu Laboratory has actively responded to the national strategy of data elements, providing technical and regulatory dual guarantees for the circulation of high-sensitive data in fields such as government affairs and finance through the standards of confidential computing technology. 

Furthermore, in the context of global competition, the power to set standards directly affects the industry's discourse power. In the face of increasingly fierce standard competition in the international confidential computing field, the Nanhu Laboratory participated in the top-level design of national core standards. This not only filled the gap in domestic technical specifications, but also aimed to break the international monopoly, establish international standard discourse power, and enhance China's influence in the field of privacy computing. 

Future Outlook: Three Major Evolution Directions of Confidential Computing and the South Lake Layout

Standing at the critical juncture where the digital economy is accelerating and deepening, confidential computing is entering a crucial window period for technological evolution and industrial implementation. Director Jiang Tingting also shared with us in this conversation the development roadmap of the industry in the next 3-5 years from the South Lake perspective:

As artificial intelligence large models penetrate into various industries, the privacy and compliance of data will face higher requirements. Confidential computing technology, due to its advantages in performance and implementability, will gradually become the preferred solution for the security protection of artificial intelligence large models. Director Tingting believes: "In the next 3-5 years, confidential computing technology will inevitably develop towards a large-scale, easy-to-access, and clustered direction to support the high-performance computing power requirements of artificial intelligence large models." 

Standing at the forefront of the digital economy, Nanhu Laboratory has already made advanced preparations in the field of confidential computing. At the technical research level, the laboratory has established a specialized cluster research team for confidential computing, integrating forces from multiple disciplines to form a breakthrough team. They are committed to rapidly focusing on the core technical bottlenecks of confidential computing, such as the underlying algorithms and hardware trust roots, through cross-disciplinary collaboration mechanisms, in order to provide a solid technical foundation for industrial applications. 

In terms of industrial collaboration, Director Tingting expressed her full support and recognition for GCC, and particularly emphasized that "Nanhu Laboratory will strengthen in-depth cooperation with GCC, fully support GCC's related work, and vigorously promote standardization, white papers and pilot projects in the field of confidential computing within the alliance framework. Through standardization, we will lead the technological iteration and work together with more industry partners to jointly promote the vigorous development of the field of confidential computing." 

In the era of accelerated evolution of digital civilization, Nanhu Laboratory takes the exploration of innovative breakthroughs in confidential computing as its mission. It leads the construction of a new order for the industry development with standards, and with the "breaking cocoon power", it is promoting the deep reconfiguration of the confidential computing industry ecosystem. Every step of the exploration by Nanhu Laboratory carries the heavy responsibility of promoting the safe and efficient development of the digital economy. When data becomes the "blood" of digital civilization, confidential computing is like the "security barrier" protecting this precious resource, ensuring that data does not lose control during flow and does not leak during sharing, and injecting the gene of trust into the innovative vitality of the digital economy. As Director Tingting said, in the future, it is believed that Nanhu Laboratory will continue to shoulder its mission and keep moving forward, making confidential computing truly become a solid foundation supporting digital civilization.