Niobium taps Samsung for encrypted AI chip production

Niobium has moved its fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) accelerator chip closer to production after signing a development and manufacturing partnership with SEMIFIVE and Samsung Foundry.

The US company, which focuses on hardware acceleration for FHE, described the deal as a milestone in its shift from prototype systems to manufacturing readiness and early commercial deployment.

FHE is a cryptographic approach that allows computation on encrypted data. The data remains encrypted throughout processing, and only the holder of the decryption key can view the results in plaintext.

The technique has drawn interest from cloud operators, regulated industries, and AI developers because it reduces exposure of sensitive information during processing. It has also attracted attention as organisations consider long-term cryptographic resilience and potential risks from quantum computing, which is expected to undermine several widely used encryption schemes.

Under the partnership, Niobium will work with SEMIFIVE on the design and development of its accelerator application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). SEMIFIVE is a Design Solution Partner in Samsung Foundry's SAFE partner ecosystem. Samsung Foundry will manufacture the chip on its 8-nanometre process, which it positions as a mature node for volume production.

From prototypes

Niobium presented the agreement as part of its transition from research and development into a product phase, moving through manufacturing preparation and into customer environments. It also tied the work to expected deployment discussions with hyperscalers and AI infrastructure providers exploring privacy-preserving techniques for data processing and model workflows.

Hardware acceleration has become a central strategy for making cryptographic workloads feasible at scale. FHE has historically faced major performance constraints, with processing far slower than conventional computation, limiting adoption outside niche use cases and research.

Niobium argues that dedicated silicon can change that by offloading and streamlining FHE operations. The company has not disclosed performance targets, expected pricing, or initial customer commitments.

Niobium CEO Kevin Yoder said demand for encrypted processing will grow as organisations reassess what data can safely be handled in plaintext within complex cloud and AI supply chains.

"Encrypted computation will become inevitable," said Kevin Yoder, CEO, Niobium. "Once enterprises can compute directly on encrypted data at fast enough speeds, processing sensitive information in the clear will no longer be acceptable. With SEMIFIVE and Samsung Foundry, we're translating years of R&D into production-ready silicon for encrypted cloud and AI environments. This represents the next step in our transition from prototype systems to accelerators suitable for customer deployments."

Partners' roles

SEMIFIVE develops platform-based system-on-chip (SoC) designs and works with customers on custom silicon. For this project, it will lead SoC development and platform execution work around Niobium's accelerator design.

SEMIFIVE CEO and co-founder Brandon Cho called FHE accelerators an emerging architecture in privacy-focused computing.

"Niobium is at the forefront of encrypted computation, and their FHE accelerator platform represents one of the most important emerging architectures in privacy-first computing," said Brandon Cho, CEO and co-founder, SEMIFIVE. "We are pleased to support Niobium in translating this cutting-edge FHE innovation into manufacturable silicon through SEMIFIVE's proven SoC development and platform execution."

Samsung Foundry will manufacture the chip on its 8nm process and support the effort through its SAFE ecosystem, which pairs foundry customers with design services and IP partners. Foundries have increasingly emphasised these ecosystems as chip development becomes more complex and more companies pursue custom silicon rather than off-the-shelf components.

Samsung Electronics' vice president and head of Foundry Technology Planning, Taejoong Song, linked the work to future requirements in AI and cloud infrastructure.

"Encrypted computation will play an increasingly critical role in the future of AI and cloud systems," said Taejoong Song, vice president and head of Foundry Technology Planning at Samsung Electronics. "Through Samsung Foundry's advanced process technology and SAFE ecosystem of partners, we are proud to support Niobium and SEMIFIVE as they bring next-generation private computing silicon to global markets."

Market context

The announcement comes as cloud operators and AI developers face growing scrutiny over where data is exposed during processing, including training data, inference inputs, intermediate results, and operational telemetry. Encryption at rest and in transit is now standard practice across much of the industry, but most computation still happens on decrypted data inside trusted environments.

FHE is one of several approaches aimed at reducing exposure during computation. Others include secure enclaves and multi-party computation, each with different trade-offs in performance, deployment complexity, and trust assumptions. Companies evaluating these methods often focus on whether they can run them within existing cloud infrastructure and AI pipelines.

Niobium is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, with offices in Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco, California. The collaboration with SEMIFIVE and Samsung Foundry is part of its push toward manufacturing readiness and early deployments in encrypted cloud and AI environments.