"The commitment of AMD to technological innovation aligns with our mission to develop and accelerate the adoption of the hybrid cloud to help connect, secure and power our digital world," said Dario Gil, Director of IBM Research. "IBM is focused on giving our clients choice, agility and security in our hybrid cloud offerings through advanced research, development and scaling of new technologies."

"This agreement between AMD and IBM aligns well with our long-standing commitment to collaborating with leaders in the industry," said Mark Papermaster, Executive Vice President and CTO, AMD. "AMD is excited to extend our work with IBM on AI, accelerating data centre workloads, and improving security across the cloud."

For many companies, securing highly sensitive data still remains a challenge: cyber security is currently the top barrier for adoption as well as the top criteria for selection of cloud providers, according to data from IBM's Institute for Business value.

According to Gartner, Confidential Computing potentially removes the remaining barrier to hybrid cloud adoption for highly regulated businesses or any organisation concerned about unauthorised third-party access to data in use in the public cloud.

Confidential Computing is a technology, enabled by hardware, that allows the data associated with a running Virtual Machine (VM) to be encrypted, including while workloads are running. This capability helps prevent would-be attackers and bad actors from accessing confidential information, even in the event of a break-in. Confidential Computing for hybrid cloud unlocks new potential for enterprise adoption of hybrid cloud computing, especially in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare and insurance. 

Engagement between AMD and IBM researchers on joint development activities under the agreement is now underway.