Today, many businesses face what could be called “a collaboration-security paradox:” they need to establish collaboration across teams, partners, and platforms to harness the full potential of data analytics while remaining in control of what and how the data is stored. The solution lies in confidential computing, which unsurprisingly has become one of the fastest-growing market segments of the digital industry. We talked with Chetan Urkudkar, a software architect with over a decade of experience, currently a Senior Staff Software Development Engineer at LiveRamp, whose work spans multiple applications of secure computing, from HR platforms to clean room solutions, and has earned recognition from AWS and Google Cloud.
With the experience you have amassed in over a decade at companies such as Saba Software, Habu and LiveRamp, which includes creating secure systems from HR platforms to clean room architectures, as well as developing a recently patented method for secure clean room computation, you have become a recognised voice in the field of confidential computing. How did your interest in this area begin, and, how would you explain confidential computing and their significance for those still new to the concept?
From the very beginning of my career, I worked on systems that handled highly sensitive data, such as employee information. This made it immediately clear to me that the secure architecture was not optional, but an essential part of any system. As over time data started to play a key role in decision-making and collaboration, I recognised the gap between what businesses wanted to do with their data and how securely they were able to achieve it. Exploring and implementing the most reliable ways to resolve this issue drew me into the field of confidential computing.
In essence, confidential computing is a set of tools and approaches that allow companies to process sensitive data in secure, isolated environments. It brings collaboration across teams or even business partners to a whole new level, allowing all parties to work together without sharing the raw data. Through using these technologies, companies can securely implement data-driven strategies, AI integrations, and data collaboration while adhering to regulations, protecting the data of their customers, and preventing data leaks.
You began your software engineering career at Saba Software, where you were awarded “Star Performer of the Quarter” early on. What drew you to work on data infrastructure and privacy-focused architecture and how did this early experience shape your software development journey?
When I served on ground-level aspects of an HR information system at Saba Software, it became clear that data needs to be accessible to provide business value, but personal information must be kept secure and private. I found working on the technical challenge of developing such a solution difficult and inspiring. Creating an ETL platform that could extract data, transform data, and load data out of a multitude of sources while maintaining adherence to privacy standards challenged me to think about software architecture and research best practices of creating robust solutions. In addition, this early experience made me appreciate how crucial secure handling of data is to system integrity and trust between users, and this became a central part of my work later in my career.
In this project on the HR information system you mentioned, you have managed to balance performance, interoperability, and strive for privacy by design . What helped you to achieve this result?
To build an efficient and scalable system, it must be designed with scalability and modularity as a starting point from the beginning. We created a collection of reusable workflows and components that enabled data to be processed by the system in an efficient manner while offering configurations that automate data protection.. Further, this strategy enabled the firm to save on licensing expenses by refraining from redundant tools and generating a single framework. We also implemented data standardisation, thus enabling the system to scale with high performance while not having to compromise on compliance or interoperability.
Later on at Habu, one of today’s premier firms in enterprise data collaboration, you have been instrumental in creating API gateways that facilitate secure cross-cloud collaboration on AWS, GCP, and Azure. What is their importance to enterprise-scale customers?
The complexity of these solutions came from the need to allow applications to communicate seamlessly across different cloud environments, minimizing data movement.. This zero-copy principle supports API gateways we’ve built to enable external applications to interact with the data securely. This approach supports compliance, with flexible controls to support risk mitigation of data processing. It’s especially important for companies who are working with partners or clients who seek insight, but not direct access to data.
Your proprietary “clean room capsule” can be viewed as an extension of this philosophy, which responds to a rising demand for tamper-proof spaces. What is this solution solving and why is it innovative?
The clean-room capsule was designed to address a key challenge of data collaboration: how to run computations on data without exposing it. This solution allows multiple parties to contribute their data for analysis while setting their own governance controls. It answers the rising demand for secure solutions in enterprise-scale collaboration.
The clean room capsule solution you developed and patented offers a novel way to secure computing because you can now compute on encrypted data while not revealing information beneath. Could you elaborate on why you feel your solution is technically distinct and how you’ve applied it outside of working at LiveRamp?
The clean room capsule addresses a central dilemma: to enable multiple organisations to engage in responsible data collaboration.What makes the solution special is that multiple advanced principles are combined, including zero-copy architecture, in which data remains at rest in its origination point, cross-cloud operability, enabling collaboration between different cloud providers; and confidential computing inside secure systems. In addition, the solution is modular and scaleable, and hence can be used by different clients and their requirements.
From having created the solution at Habu, I continued to develop the concept at LiveRamp, used to build clean room infrastructures that are implemented by finance, healthcare, retail and advertising clients. Platforms allow for secure data collaboration and analytics are trusted by partners such as AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud.
You mentioned that designing reusable, scalable architecture requires a successful collaboration of engineering, QA, and product teams. In what ways does that background influence successful confidential computer efforts and what do you see as the industry’s future?
Secure computing can’t be achieved in a vacuum—it requires harmonious collaboration between technical and functional teams. On my projects, from constructing secure ETL workflows to architecting cross-cloud API gateways, engineering, QA, and product collaboration were key. It made sure that the solutions we created were not only secure on paper, but functional, scalable, and geared toward business objectives. In the future, I think the industry will trend increasingly toward secure-by-design, but integral to architecture from inception.