U.S. enterprise software company OPAQUE has acquired advanced cryptographic AI technology developed by Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII), expanding its confidential AI platform with technology designed to protect sensitive data during AI processing.
The acquisition brings Abu Dhabi-developed cryptographic research into OPAQUE’s commercial software, extending its capabilities across AI model training, fine-tuning, inference and AI agents.
TII developed the technology through its research in cryptography and secure computing. OPAQUE will integrate it into its platform as enterprises and government organizations increasingly investigate how to use AI without exposing sensitive information.
The technology includes multi-party computation and fully homomorphic encryption, which enable certain computations while keeping the underlying data protected.
That capability is aimed at situations where AI needs access to highly sensitive information. Healthcare providers, financial institutions and government agencies, for example, may want to use AI with patient, financial or confidential government data without giving the AI provider direct access to that information.
OPAQUE Expands Confidential AI Capabilities
OPAQUE’s platform is built around confidential computing, with security measures designed to protect data while AI workloads are running.
The company uses Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and hardware-based attestation to protect workloads and verify aspects of the environment in which they run.
OPAQUE says its architecture is designed so that even the company cannot access customers’ protected data.
With the TII technology, OPAQUE says it can extend protection across the AI lifecycle rather than focusing only on the point where a model generates an answer.
The expanded platform is intended to cover AI training, fine-tuning, inference and AI agents, which can interact with other applications and carry out tasks.
Post-Quantum Security Added
The acquisition also gives OPAQUE access to post-quantum cryptography, an area focused on protecting encrypted information against future attacks involving quantum computers.
Quantum computing remains an emerging technology, but security researchers have warned that sufficiently powerful quantum machines could undermine some encryption techniques used today.
Adding post-quantum capabilities allows OPAQUE to address both current security requirements and potential future threats, according to the company.
Abu Dhabi Technology Moves Into U.S. Enterprise Software
The deal gives TII’s research a commercial route into the U.S. enterprise technology market.
TII is the applied research arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council and works on technologies including artificial intelligence, cryptography and quantum technologies.
The companies highlighted the acquisition at Make it in the Emirates, underscoring the transition of the technology from research and development in Abu Dhabi to commercial deployment through a U.S. technology company.
For OPAQUE, the acquisition adds cryptographic technology to its existing confidential AI offering as it targets organizations that face strict privacy, security and data residency requirements.
Technology Targets Sensitive AI Workloads
The technology could be used in areas where organizations need to keep tight control over data.
A healthcare company could use AI with protected medical information. A financial institution could analyze sensitive financial data. Government organizations could run AI workloads involving information that cannot be freely shared or moved between jurisdictions.
OPAQUE says its platform can provide hardware-attested evidence related to security and compliance frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and ISO 42001, as well as GDPR Article 32 and requirements under the EU AI Act.
The company also says ServiceNow is already using its platform in production.
OPAQUE has raised $24 million in Series B funding at a reported $300 million valuation and lists ServiceNow, Anthropic, Accenture and Encore Capital among its customers.
The company says the combined technology can help enterprises and sovereign AI programs move from AI projects to production deployments faster. OPAQUE has claimed that deployments can move four to five times faster, though that figure comes from the company and was not independently verified in the acquisition announcement.
The acquisition marks a new commercial step for cryptographic research developed in Abu Dhabi, bringing it into a U.S. software platform for enterprises focused on securing AI workloads as businesses move toward wider use of sensitive data in AI systems.
