The Sui Foundation announced the fourth cohort of recipients of the Sui Academic Research Awards, which funds 20 research teams from prestigious universities including UC Berkeley, Yale, NYU, EPFL, and the University of Florida. National University of Singapore. According to the Sui blog, the initiative aims to advance blockchain technology, smart contract programming, and products built on the Sui platform.
Zero-knowledge proofs and AI-based tools
Among the funded projects is the work of Fan Zhang at Yale University, which focuses on improving zero-knowledge proof (zk-proof) generation through caching techniques. This method aims to significantly speed up zk proof generation and increase the efficiency of real-world applications by storing intermediate results of iterative calculations.
Georgia Tech’s Vijay Ganesh is developing AIChain, a tool that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) for static analysis and fuzzing of smart contracts. AIChain aims to enhance smart contract security by automating the detection of security vulnerabilities.
Innovative approach to key archiving and consensus protocols
Research by Tushar Jois at The Research Foundation of CUNY explores how smart homes can use existing Internet of Things (IoT) devices for key storage. This approach provides a cost-effective and secure method for Web3 key storage by leveraging the collective security of multiple fixed devices.
Natacha Crooks at UC Berkeley is developing Autobahn, a new consensus protocol that combines directed acyclic graph (DAG)-based data distribution with traditional partially synchronous consensus mechanisms. This aims to maintain low latency during normal operation and robustness during network outages.
Risk management and smart contract auditing
Lukasz Szpruch and David Siska from the University of Edinburgh are creating an automated risk management system for Sui’s DeFi ecosystem. Their project aims to develop a verifiable, real-time data-driven risk management framework and automate protocol parameter settings and stress testing through agent-based simulation.
Diego Garbervetsky at the Universidad de Buenos Aires is developing tools that use conditional abstractions to help auditors explore and verify smart contract behavior. This aims to improve audit efficiency and overall security of smart contracts.
Enhancing blockchain scalability and privacy
Ooi Beng Chin of the National University of Singapore is solving the execution engine bottleneck of modern blockchains by designing Web3-based workloads for parallel execution. The goal of this study is to provide valuable insights into the scalability and performance of modern blockchains by benchmarking popular apps such as DEXs, NFT marketplaces, and games.
NYU’s Yevgeniy Dodis is exploring “on-chain encryption” for personal storage, with the goal of ensuring data privacy and availability on the blockchain. This research leverages our expertise in developing secure messaging protocols such as Signal and Zoom.
Future research and applications
Other notable projects include efforts by Aniket Kate at Purdue University to develop a post-quantum secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) protocol, and Jieliang Yin at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to develop a decentralized zkLogin solution using biometric methods. there is. .
The Sui Foundation’s commitment to fund groundbreaking research is set to significantly advance blockchain technology, making it more scalable, secure, and efficient. The next request for proposals closes on July 5, 2024.
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