The encryption you already bought still leaves data readable in RAM
Disk encryption and TLS are now default in most cloud estates. They do not stop a hypervisor, a cloud operator, or a compromised guest kernel from reading the same data once it is loaded for processing. Confidential computing narrows who can see that plaintext while it is in use; it does not take the chip vendor, the attestation service, or (in the common VM-level design) the guest operating system out of the picture, and buyers should price it that way.
That gap is no longer a specialist talking point. Cloud platforms have spent the past year putting “encryption in use” next to ordinary compute SKUs, managed data services, and AI inference paths, because the workloads that most need it are the ones already running in someone else’s memory.
The third state becomes a cloud product
Google’s own documentation, last updated in October 2026, states the three-state model in plain terms:...
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