GPU acceleration

This guide explains how to update your existing program to leverage GPU acceleration, or to start a new program using GPU.

TFHE-rs now supports a GPU backend with CUDA implementation, enabling integer arithmetic operations on encrypted data.

Prerequisites

• Cuda version >= 10

• Compute Capability >= 3.0

• gcc >= 8.0 - check this page for more details about nvcc/gcc compatible versions

• cmake >= 3.24

• Rust version - check this page

Importing to your project

To use the TFHE-rs GPU backend in your project, add the following dependency in your Cargo.toml.

If you are using an x86 machine:

tfhe = { version = "0.8.7", features = ["boolean", "shortint", "integer", "x86_64-unix", "gpu"] }

If you are using an ARM machine:

tfhe = { version = "0.8.7", features = [ "boolean", "shortint", "integer", "aarch64-unix", "gpu" ] }

For optimal performance when using TFHE-rs, run your code in release mode with the --release flag.

Supported platforms

TFHE-rs GPU backend is supported on Linux (x86, aarch64).

OS	x86	aarch64
Linux	x86_64-unix	aarch64-unix*
macOS	Unsupported	Unsupported*
Windows	Unsupported	Unsupported

A first example

Configuring and creating keys.

Comparing to the CPU example, GPU set up differs in the key creation, as detailed here

Here is a full example (combining the client and server parts):

use tfhe::{ConfigBuilder, set_server_key, FheUint8, ClientKey, CompressedServerKey};
use tfhe::prelude::*;

fn main() {

    let config = ConfigBuilder::default().build();

    let client_key= ClientKey::generate(config);
    let compressed_server_key = CompressedServerKey::new(&client_key);

    let gpu_key = compressed_server_key.decompress_to_gpu();

    let clear_a = 27u8;
    let clear_b = 128u8;

    let a = FheUint8::encrypt(clear_a, &client_key);
    let b = FheUint8::encrypt(clear_b, &client_key);

    //Server-side

    set_server_key(gpu_key);
    let result = a + b;

    //Client-side
    let decrypted_result: u8 = result.decrypt(&client_key);

    let clear_result = clear_a + clear_b;

    assert_eq!(decrypted_result, clear_result);
}

Beware that when the GPU feature is activated, when calling: let config = ConfigBuilder::default().build();, the cryptographic parameters differ from the CPU ones, used when the GPU feature is not activated. Indeed, TFHE-rs uses dedicated parameters for the GPU in order to achieve better performance.

Setting the keys

The configuration of the key is different from the CPU. More precisely, if both client and server keys are still generated by the client (which is assumed to run on a CPU), the server key has then to be decompressed by the server to be converted into the right format. To do so, the server should run this function: decompressed_to_gpu().

Once decompressed, the operations between CPU and GPU are identical.

Encryption

On the client-side, the method to encrypt the data is exactly the same than the CPU one, as shown in the following example:

    let clear_a = 27u8;
    let clear_b = 128u8;
    
    let a = FheUint8::encrypt(clear_a, &client_key);
    let b = FheUint8::encrypt(clear_b, &client_key);

Computation

The server first need to set up its keys with set_server_key(gpu_key).

Then, homomorphic computations are performed using the same approach as the CPU operations.

    //Server-side
    set_server_key(gpu_key);
    let result = a + b;

    //Client-side
    let decrypted_result: u8 = result.decrypt(&client_key);

    let clear_result = clear_a + clear_b;

    assert_eq!(decrypted_result, clear_result);

Decryption

Finally, the client decrypts the results using:

    let decrypted_result: u8 = result.decrypt(&client_key);

List of available operations

The GPU backend includes the following operations for both signed and unsigned encrypted integers:

name	symbol	Enc/Enc	Enc/ Int
Neg	-	✔️	N/A
Add	+	✔️	✔️
Sub	-	✔️	✔️
Mul	*	✔️	✔️
Div	/	✔️	✔️
Rem	%	✔️	✔️
Not	!	✔️	N/A
BitAnd	&	✔️	✔️
BitOr	|	✔️	✔️
BitXor	^	✔️	✔️
Shr	>>	✔️	✔️
Shl	<<	✔️	✔️
Rotate right	rotate_right	✔️	✔️
Rotate left	rotate_left	✔️	✔️
Min	min	✔️	✔️
Max	max	✔️	✔️
Greater than	gt	✔️	✔️
Greater or equal than	ge	✔️	✔️
Lower than	lt	✔️	✔️
Lower or equal than	le	✔️	✔️
Equal	eq	✔️	✔️
Cast (into dest type)	cast_into	✖️	N/A
Cast (from src type)	cast_from	✖️	N/A
Ternary operator	select	✔️	✖️

All operations follow the same syntax than the one described in here.

Multi-GPU support

TFHE-rs supports platforms with multiple GPUs with some restrictions at the moment: the platform should have NVLink support, and only GPUs that have peer access to GPU 0 via NVLink will be used for the computation. Depending on the platform, this can restrict the number of GPUs used to perform the computation.

There is nothing to change in the code to execute on multiple GPUs, when they are available and have peer access to GPU 0 via NVLink. To keep the API as user-friendly as possible, the configuration is automatically set, i.e., the user has no fine-grained control over the number of GPUs to be used.

Benchmark

Please refer to the GPU benchmarks for detailed performance benchmark results.

Warning

When measuring GPU times on your own on Linux, set the environment variable CUDA_MODULE_LOADING=EAGER to avoid CUDA API overheads during the first kernel execution.

Compressing ciphertexts after some homomorphic computation on the GPU

You can compress ciphertexts using the GPU, even after computations, just like on the CPU.

The way to do it is very similar to how it's done on the CPU. The following example shows how to compress and decompress a list containing 4 messages:

• One 32-bits integer

• One 64-bit integer

• One Boolean

• One 2-bit integer

use tfhe::prelude::*;
use tfhe::shortint::parameters::{
    COMP_PARAM_MESSAGE_2_CARRY_2_KS_PBS_TUNIFORM_2M64, PARAM_MESSAGE_2_CARRY_2_KS_PBS_TUNIFORM_2M64,
};
use tfhe::{
    set_server_key, CompressedCiphertextList, CompressedCiphertextListBuilder, FheBool,
    FheInt64, FheUint16, FheUint2, FheUint32,
};

fn main() {
    let config =
        tfhe::ConfigBuilder::with_custom_parameters(PARAM_MESSAGE_2_CARRY_2_KS_PBS_TUNIFORM_2M64)
            .enable_compression(COMP_PARAM_MESSAGE_2_CARRY_2_KS_PBS_TUNIFORM_2M64)
            .build();

    let ck = tfhe::ClientKey::generate(config);
    let compressed_server_key = tfhe::CompressedServerKey::new(&ck);
    let gpu_key = compressed_server_key.decompress_to_gpu();

    set_server_key(gpu_key);

    let ct1 = FheUint32::encrypt(17_u32, &ck);

    let ct2 = FheInt64::encrypt(-1i64, &ck);

    let ct3 = FheBool::encrypt(false, &ck);

    let ct4 = FheUint2::encrypt(3u8, &ck);

    let compressed_list = CompressedCiphertextListBuilder::new()
        .push(ct1)
        .push(ct2)
        .push(ct3)
        .push(ct4)
        .build()
        .unwrap();

    let serialized = bincode::serialize(&compressed_list).unwrap();

    println!("Serialized size: {} bytes", serialized.len());

    let compressed_list: CompressedCiphertextList = bincode::deserialize(&serialized).unwrap();

    let a: FheUint32 = compressed_list.get(0).unwrap().unwrap();
    let b: FheInt64 = compressed_list.get(1).unwrap().unwrap();
    let c: FheBool = compressed_list.get(2).unwrap().unwrap();
    let d: FheUint2 = compressed_list.get(3).unwrap().unwrap();

    let a: u32 = a.decrypt(&ck);
    assert_eq!(a, 17);
    let b: i64 = b.decrypt(&ck);
    assert_eq!(b, -1);
    let c = c.decrypt(&ck);
    assert!(!c);
    let d: u8 = d.decrypt(&ck);
    assert_eq!(d, 3);

}