Supercharging Federated Intelligence Retrieval
The paper introduces a secure Federated RAG system that enables confidential retrieval and LLM inference across distributed, private data silos.
Abstract
More Like ThisRAG typically assumes centralized access to documents, which breaks down when knowledge is distributed across private data silos. We propose a secure Federated RAG system built using Flower that performs local silo retrieval, while server-side aggregation and text generation run inside an attested, confidential compute environment, enabling confidential remote LLM inference even in the presence of honest-but-curious or compromised servers. We also propose a cascading inference approach that incorporates a non-confidential third-party model (e.g., Amazon Nova) as auxiliary context without weakening confidentiality.