Covenant EncryptionSecure Enclaves
Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE)
Privacy
Weights + data never leave ciphertext
Data visible inside enclave
Data fully encrypted, model often public
Speed
Increased model setup and deployment time, minimal speed loss in production
15-40% slower
100-1,000x slower
Hardware Lock-In
Runs on any standard CPU/GPU cloud
Requires TEE ready CPUs
Heavy CPU demand, GPU still experimental
Scales to Large LLMs?
Yes, roadmap targets 70B parameter models
Struggles past <312 MB enclave
Impractical beyond small models
Total Cost to Run
Pay-as-you-go GPUs, modest overhead
Higher instance cost + perf hit
Cloud bill explodes up to 100x