# R22: BumbleBee: Secure Two-party Inference Framework for Large Transformers

BumbleBee implements secure two-party transformer inference with specialized nonlinear protocols and an Apache-2.0 artifact. PLLM status: tracked.

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Document ID: `pllm.docs.research.papers.r22-openbumblebee`  
Release: `0.1.0`

**Status:** `tracked`
**Year:** 2025
**Authors:** Wen-jie Lu, Zhicong Huang, Zhen Gu, Jingyu Li, Jian Liu, Cheng Hong, Kui Ren, Tao Wei, Wenguang Chen
**External source:** [BumbleBee: Secure Two-party Inference Framework for Large Transformers](https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1678)

## Source contribution

BumbleBee implements secure two-party transformer inference with specialized nonlinear protocols and an Apache-2.0 artifact.

## PLLM perspective

Reproduce the source workload, then isolate normalization, softmax, activation and communication components for comparison with PLLM plans.

No PLLM BumbleBee reproduction has been executed.

This paper remains tracked. Named modules below are implementation targets, not finished PLLM components; no reproduction, integration, assurance, or matched benchmark is claimed.

The source's boundary remains binding: Both parties are online and hold additive shares; this cannot enter the one-evaluator profile without changing the trust topology.

## PLLM modules and documentation

Target module identifiers: `protocol.bumblebee`, `gate.bumblebee_nonlinear`, `runtime.bumblebee`. These identifiers describe scoped work unless this page explicitly links an implementation source. Dependencies: None.

- [Research backlog](/research/backlog/)
- [Reimplementation backlog](/research/backlog/)
- [Clean-room workflow](/research/clean-room/)

## Backlog

This source is assigned to reimplementation priority 8, **Full-system comparison targets**. Its source-registry order is 22. Follow current gates and unfinished work in the [research backlog](/research/backlog/).