Several technology companies have joined Nillion’s newly launched Enterprise Cluster — an initiative aimed at extending decentralized applications beyond cryptocurrencies into privacy-focused use cases such as healthcare, financial management and enterprise data sharing.
As part of the partnership, Deutsche Telekom, Alibaba Cloud, STC Bahrain and Pairpoint by Vodafone are operating infrastructure nodes on Nillion’s decentralized compute platform, the company announced Thursday.
The Enterprise Cluster enables organizations to run privacy-critical applications on decentralized infrastructure, helping to minimize the trade-offs between the risks of centralized systems and the limitations of blockchain-based privacy.
“For the first time, organizations can compute on encrypted data across decentralized clusters, without sacrificing privacy,” Nillion’s co-founder and chief scientist, Miguel de Vega, told Cointelegraph. “It’s proof that privacy-first computation is now enterprise-ready infrastructure.”
Nillion is a decentralized network focused on secure data storage and computation. Its core technology, Nil Message Compute, enables encrypted data to be processed without decryption.
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Nillion raised $25 million in October, bringing its total funding to $50 million.
Before the fundraise, Nillion’s technology was integrated with the Aptos network to support privacy-focused applications.
Related: Ethereum privacy roadmap proposes EU GDPR-safe blockchain design
Blockchain privacy has never left the spotlight
Nillion’s technology aims to address what it describes as a “longstanding dilemma” — the inherent privacy limitations of blockchain systems.
These limitations have faced heightened scrutiny in 2025, as global crypto regulations increasingly target privacy tools, including mixers, zero-knowledge proofs, stealth addresses and self-custodied wallets.
As Cointelegraph noted, the debate over privacy in blockchain is far from settled. Emerging technologies continue to challenge the notion that anonymity should automatically be viewed as a criminal threat.
Traditionally, protecting sensitive data on the blockchain has relied on keeping it entirely offchain or encrypting it onchain. However, as Midnight CEO Eran Barak warned, onchain encryption does not “provide durable privacy” in light of the rapid advances in quantum computing.
Despite the public debate, several privacy-focused projects continue to gain traction, particularly in the areas of zero-knowledge proofs and decentralized identity.
Related: Crypto projects prepare to battle for privacy in Switzerland
