Fabric Cryptography: Building The Next Hardware Paradigm For Cryptography

Fabric cryptography is setting out to be the next Nvidia of cryptography in the next year. Founded just one year ago, the company is developing groundbreaking hardware aimed specifically at the cryptography sector, which has been one of the foundational building blocks of privacy and security in the blockchain world. Fabric hopes to bridge the gaps created by the needs of the current cryptography world and the current hardware, by creating a chip that possesses the flexibility, programability, and power and cater to the needs of the current crypto world.

Building the hardware for future cryptography implementation?

Just like how computers have CPUs and GPUs, Fabric cryptography is now creating an even more powerful chip called the verifiable processing unit (VPU), which would be the heart of cryptography hardware, enabling users to break down the algorithms used in the discipline into their mathematical building blocks, which are accelerated and supported by the chip.

The development of cryptography, such as zero-knowledge proof, has been getting a lot of attention recently from hardware designers and manufacturers. Zero Knowledge proof allows prover to verify and prove something is true to the verifier without revealing any personal data about themselves. Cryptography is so widely used in different areas, from Generative AI all the way to cryptocurrency and blockchain.

But as cryptography and ZKP are still in its nascent stage, there is still not enough research done on the hardware of cryptography and Fabric cryptography comes to bridge this gap. The company has set lofty goals of going into mass production early next year, and it has even revealed that it already has a $50 million order for a product that is still in the making. This shows the trust the customers and anticipation they have over this product.

Building a chip powerful enough to run advanced cryptography

Following in the footsteps of Nvidia, Fabric is hoping to create a new chip that would cater to the growing needs of the cryptography market. Unlike many function chips which are found on the market, the VPU that Fabric is creating has programmability, flexibility and performance the the current GPU and CPU is lacking. The VPU can be programmed to run virtually any cryptographic workload efficiently using its innovative instruction set. Hence the VPU that the company is building is future-proof, as it can adapt to new cryptography alCPUgorithms as they are developed and productionized.

Apart from flexibility and adaptability, Gao also highlighted another aspect of the VPU which trump over current function chips; and this area is power. Modern cryptography requires specialised chips like the VPU, as it would have the power required to power the many advance cryptographic algorithms out in the market. In comparison, CPU and GPU often fall short of expectations, as they are never made for the kind of intensive math that advanced cryptography uses.

Raising a total of $39 million

Fabric cryptography's fundraising didn't come at a better time. Co-led by Blockchain Capital and 1kx, with participation from specialists in the sector such as Offchain Labs, Polygon and Matter labs.

The investment follows a $6 million seed round led by Metaplanet with participation from investors including Inflection and Liquid2 Ventures. The recent announcement brings the total amount of funds raised by the company since its launch last year to $39 million. The fact that there are so many crypto investors lining up to invest in cryptography is no coincidence. Investors have also expressed their excitement to partner with Fabric cryptography and to help the company on its mission to integrate privacy and verifiability into all digital systems. These investments will also give the project the necessary funds it requires to reach mass production and further research and development. For example, the expansion of the development of additional software and cloud infrastructure to support innovative VPU technology.

Collaboration between MIT dropout and AI vaterans

The face of Fabric Cryptography is Michael Gao. Gao has diverse work experience in the technology industry. Michael is the Founder and CEO of Fabric. Prior to Fabric, Gao was the Cofounder and Chief Strategy officer of Luminous Computing, a photonic AI hardware startup. Michael played a key role in assembling the founding team and creating the vision of the company. Gao attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2014-2015, majoring in Applied Mathematics. Before dropping out after two years of studies.

Onboard with Gao on the team also includes over 50 AI hardware and software engineers and cryptographers from companies such as Nvidia, Google, Amazon, Groq, and Cerebras. The team aims to utilize hardware-software codesign techniques currently found in AI hardware.

Gao's socials:

LinkedIn | X

The next Nvidia?

To call yourself the next Nvidia is a pretty bold statement from the founder of Fabric Cryptography. Regardless of whether Fabric is able to hit its target by next year, I think that Fabric has already won half of the battle because of how early it has entered the market and how they will forever be regarded as the pioneering explorer into the chips of advance cryptography. This project is bound to be one of the most revolutionizing projects as to what the VPU can do for cryptography and similar to how Nvidia's GPU and many other startups' chips are doing for AI.

About 1kx

1kx is a leading venture investment firm that partners with forward-thinking founders and protocols to help grow the crypto ecosystem. Founded in 2018 and supported by a team of leading engineers, investors, and entrepreneurs, 1kx takes a collaborative, hands-on approach to help the best and brightest minds in web3 grow and scale their platforms and build lasting community-driven networks.