For the past six years economists and computer scientists at Aarhus University, University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen Business School have cooperated on the research project CFEM - "Center for Research in the Foundations of Electronic Market". The focal point of the CFEM project, which ends in July, has been the technology "Secure Multiparty Computation" - basic research which today has evolved into a spinoff company as well as a credit rating prototype.

2016.06.30 | Sebastian von Cappelen

Secure Multiparty Computation (SMC) is one of the core technologies of the CFEM project. Thirty years ago, Secure Multiparty Computation was a theoretical concept, but today the technology is a powerful tool that allows us to perform complex computations on encrypted data. In the past, it would take days, but now we can do it in a few seconds. Therefore, the technology can be used in a wide range of industrial applications:

• Start-up company Sepior – a spinoff of the activities in CFEM – uses Secure Multiparty Computation in their encryption product for cloud services.  
• Other applications include benchmarking, credit rating, statistics and machine learning – or any other area where we want to perform computation on data without revealing the private data behind the computation.

Collaboration between research and industry continues

CFEM has established a biannual workshop in Aarhus for researchers and people from industry. The workshop has become an institution in the world of SMC and will therefore be continued. This proves that the theory works in practice and can is useful in real products, says Ivan Bjerre Damgård.  

Read the full article in Danish here.