VAST Data has previewed VAST DataEnclave, a confidential AI capability of the VAST DataEngine built on NVIDIA Confidential Computing, which lets proprietary and open AI models run against enterprise data inside customer-controlled environments: on-premises data centers, sovereign clouds, and fully air-gapped sites. The runtime pairs hardware-isolated execution with cryptographic attestation so model weights and regulated datasets are processed while each party’s keys stay inside its own trust domain, and infrastructure operators and administrators can access neither.
Cryptographic Attestation and In-Memory Protection
VAST DataEnclave integrates with third-generation NVIDIA Confidential Computing across Hopper, Blackwell, and Rubin architectures. The system establishes hardware-isolated environments across confidential virtual machines and containers, encrypting guest system memory, GPU memory, and inter-GPU NVLink traffic. Active data pipelines and models remain isolated from host platform administrators, infrastructure operators, and adjacent multi-tenant workloads that share the same silicon.
The runtime uses a verify-before-decrypt attestation workflow that cryptographically validates the trusted execution environment and NVIDIA GPU hardware before exposing decryption keys. This prevents plain-text exposure of weights or source records until the enclave verifies system integrity and policy enforcement. Key management operates through Bring Your Own Key Management System (KMS) integrations, keeping customer data keys and vendor model weights inside separate, independent trust domains.
Sovereign Deployments, Audit Trails, and Agent Isolation
DataEnclave supports both network-connected environments and fully air-gapped data centers. Deployments use attestation services built on the open CNCF Trustee stack, or Fortanix’s Confidential AI infrastructure through a partnership for fully sovereign AI. Attestation events, cryptographic key releases, and enclave lifecycle actions are logged to a tamper-proof, queryable audit trail in the VAST DataBase.
The same DataEngine secure runtime provides isolated execution environments for AI agents through VAST AgentEngine, enforcing policy over the data, systems, and tools agents can access and the actions they can take.
VAST announced the preview with model builders Cohere, CrowdStrike, Deepgram, Factory, Fundamental, and TwelveLabs, AI cloud providers BUZZ HPC, Nscale, and Sharon AI, and hardware partners Cisco and Supermicro, alongside Fortanix and NVIDIA. It lands three weeks after VAST’s CrowdStrike integration went live, with CrowdStrike now on the DataEnclave partner list as a model builder. DataEnclave is scheduled to ship in Q1 2027 through VAST Data and participating OEM partners, including Cisco and Supermicro.
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