THE CRAZIEST TECHNOLOGY YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF
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August 26, 2025
1 minute read
Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) is a novel encryption method first developed in 2009 by Dr. Craig Gentry. FHE allows arbitrary computation on encrypted data. Think, an AI model provider that can't see your prompts or the model's output. Or a CRUD app that can't read your data.
For the 4th edition of the Summer of Math Exposition (SoME), I presented an overview of FHE. I covered the basic math concepts behind FHE and a brief history of the developments and techniques.
The highlight was definitely interviewing Dr. Craig Gentry, the creator of the first FHE scheme in 2009. I talked with him for 2 hours, and the video features many highlights of that conversation.
In the end, I did pretty good in the competition, finishing 48th out of 187 video entries. The biggest problem with my video is that I didn't understand the math behind FHE enough. Honestly, it's very complicated. I was also short on time when producing the video--I recorded it in two days, if I recall correctly. I started late in the contest. That means my video doesn't go very deep into the math.
If I participate in SoME next summer, I'll try to make a video with more advanced math. Specifically, I'd like to explore bootstrapping, the technique that enabled the first FHE scheme.
Watch the video here!
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