In a world increasingly driven by data, artificial intelligence, and interconnected systems, trust and privacy have become the new currency of the digital era. Standing at the forefront of this transformation is Divya Gupta, a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research India, Bangalore.
Divya Gupta: From Academic Excellence to Global Research Leadership
Divya Gupta’s journey is rooted in academic rigor and intellectual curiosity. She earned her B.Tech and M.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Delhi in 2011, a period that laid the foundation for her lifelong engagement with cryptography and security. Driven by a passion for foundational research, she went on to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) under the mentorship of renowned cryptographer Amit Sahai, completing her doctorate in 2016.
Her doctoral research earned exceptional recognition, including the Dissertation Fellowship and the prestigious Dimitris N. Chorafas Dissertation Award, an honor reserved for outstanding contributions across engineering and natural sciences.
Before joining Microsoft, she further refined her research vision as a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, hosted by Sanjam Garg, one of the leading figures in modern cryptography.
Microsoft Research India: Making Cryptography Practical
At Microsoft Research India, Divya Gupta focuses on a critical challenge: how to make cryptography practical, performant, and deployable at scale. Her research does not remain confined to academic papers—it directly influences real systems used in enterprise environments.
Core Research Areas
1. Secure Multiparty Computation (MPC)
Divya Gupta has been instrumental in developing MPC protocols that allow multiple parties to compute on private data without revealing sensitive information. These advancements enable secure collaboration across organizations while preserving confidentiality.
2. Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning (PPML)
Her work has enabled some of the largest real-world evaluations of privacy-preserving AI predictions to date. From secure GPT inference to air pollution forecasting, her research ensures AI systems can operate without compromising user data.
3. Blockchain Democratization
One of her most transformative contributions lies in reducing blockchain participation costs, enabling blockchain solutions to run on mobile devices instead of heavy servers. This innovation has opened new pathways for inclusive, decentralized systems.
4. AI Security and Enterprise Privacy
As AI adoption accelerates, Divya Gupta investigates vulnerabilities such as prompt injection in enterprise assistants. Her work on secure-by-design fine-tuning systems helps organizations protect proprietary data while leveraging powerful AI models.
Divya Gupta: Landmark Projects and Industry Impact
The influence of Divya Gupta, Microsoft Research India, is evident through her widely adopted research frameworks:
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EzPC – Enhancing data security during AI model validation
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CrypTFlow & CrypTFlow2 – Practical frameworks for secure two-party and TensorFlow inference
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SIGMA – Advancing secure GPT inference using function secret sharing
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Microsoft Build 2025 – Key contributor to the “Security and Privacy in Copilot Tuning” announcement
These projects reflect her mission: security should not be a barrier—it should be an enabler.
Global Recognition and Scholarly Excellence
Divya Gupta has published over twenty papers at top cryptography and security conferences, holds multiple patents, and has received invitations to the Journal of Cryptology, an honor extended to only the most influential research works.
In recognition of her sustained excellence and impact, IIT Delhi awarded her the Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award, celebrating alumni who have achieved global distinction.