Hangzhou Launches China’s First Secret Computing Center to Secure Data Lifecycle and Enable Trusted Data Services

At the 3rd Global Digital Trade Expo on September 25, Hangzhou announced the construction of China’s first secret‑computing (密态计算) center, providing full‑lifecycle encrypted security and comprehensive capabilities for data storage, computation, research, governance, and usage across multiple industry scenarios such as finance, healthcare, urban management, commerce, and modern agriculture.

The Hangzhou Secret Computing Center, jointly promoted by the Hangzhou Data Resources Bureau and the Development and Reform Commission, is built by Zhejiang Computing Power Technology Co., Ltd. and Ant Group’s Zhejiang Ant Secret Computing Technology Co., Ltd., which supplies the technical support.

In today’s era of massive data circulation, traditional multi‑party data flows are vulnerable because plaintext data is managed by third‑party operators, leading to weak security and potential loss of control. Secret‑computing technology combines cryptography, trusted hardware, and system security to keep data “usable but invisible” during computation, ensuring results remain encrypted and enabling secure, complex collaborative calculations.

The center aggregates public and industrial data in encrypted form, accelerates value verification through encrypted research and development, and promotes large‑scale deployment of high‑value data products.

Its three main advantages are low‑cost, full‑link encrypted protection; rapid data‑value mining and verification; and scalable inter‑connectivity. The center offers encrypted storage, usage authorization, product R&D, and data‑exchange functions, forming an integrated trusted data‑element circulation system.

Cloud‑based large‑scale secret‑computing reduces processing costs, aiming to keep secret‑computing expenses below 5% of data‑circulation value, thereby encouraging trustworthy, massive data exchange.

By allowing developers to write application‑level code for encrypted data analysis without exposing raw data, the center improves R&D efficiency, facilitates rapid data‑value assessment, and helps match data providers with consumers, addressing challenges such as data quality evaluation and product pricing.

Relying on a technical trust‑standard framework, the center creates a scalable, interoperable network that secures data exchange regardless of participants’ prior trust relationships, fostering cross‑entity, cross‑industry, and cross‑regional data flow and accelerating the adoption of data‑driven services.

Hangzhou, dubbed the “digital‑economy first city,” aims to become a “data‑industry first city” and has issued policies to build a new computing ecosystem that integrates intelligent, general, super‑computing, and secret‑computing resources, with the secret‑computing center as a key milestone.