Azure apparatchik shows custom silicon keeping everything locked down

Microsoft detailed Azure’s updated silicon-enabled security stack at Hot Chips, introducing integrated per-server HSMs to lower latency and improve scalability, alongside the open-source Caliptra 2.0 root-of-trust for attestation and key management. The approach combines TEEs across CPUs/GPUs, offloaded control/data planes via smartNICs, hardened anti-tamper packaging, and a quantum-safe cryptographic accelerator to make confidential computing—encryption at rest, in transit, and in use—standard across Azure’s 2025 fleet.