The strategic collaboration between the Midnight Foundation and Google Cloud will advance the development of privacy-enhancing infrastructure and zero-knowledge technology as essential infrastructure for next-generation digital systems.
Public blockchains often expose transaction data, which makes them unsuitable for applications for handling sensitive information and applications that require regulatory compliance. The Midnight network is engineered to provide solutions to address these limitations.
"Organizations are under pressure to innovate with sensitive data while maintaining complete control over it," said Fahmi Syed, President of the Midnight Foundation. "Midnight transforms privacy from a technical barrier into a competitive advantage, enabling confidential financial systems, verifiable digital identity, and secure applications that can operate at scale with regulatory compliance built in."
This technology opens up new opportunities to build applications with selective disclosure. For example, financial institutions will be able to facilitate private trading and cross-border payments while maintaining regulatory compliance. Governments will be able to issue verifiable credentials without exposing citizen data. Healthcare systems can share patient insights for research while preserving individual privacy.
The result will be a platform for building secure applications that can operate at scale with built-in compliance.
Enterprise-grade security and infrastructure
The collaboration between the Midnight Foundation and Google Cloud will provide the technical foundation required for enterprise-level deployment and security. Google Cloud will operate critical network infrastructure, including running a validator for Midnight, as well as other services aimed at supporting the network’s growth.
Additionally, Google Cloud's Mandiant division will provide advanced threat monitoring and incident response for the network. This offers the security assurances necessary for adoption in regulated industries.
Midnight’s ZKP (zero-knowledge proof) technology will leverage Confidential Computing from Google Cloud system to protect private data, including removing the operator of the environment from the trust boundary along with hardened protection against cloud service provider access.
Accelerating ecosystem growth
To accelerate innovation, the collaboration will expand community tools and resources to support developers extending Midnight’s privacy-enhancing smart to new audiences.
Projects building on Midnight Network will also have the opportunity to apply to join the Google for Startups Web3 Program. Qualifying Web3 startups will be able to access benefits including up to US$200,000 in Google Cloud Platform Credits over two years to build, secure and scale applications with Cloud and AI, and learning resources including training and mentorship.
"The future of enterprise applications requires both transparency and privacy," said Richard Widmann, Head of Web3 Strategy and Operations at Google Cloud. "By providing scalable infrastructure, we're enabling developers to experiment with innovative zero knowledge frameworks to verify transactions without exposing sensitive data."