Optimizing Proof-of-Work for Secure Health Data Blockchain Using Compute Unified Device Architecture

Area of Science:

• Blockchain Technology
• Healthcare Informatics
• High-Performance Computing

Background:

• Current blockchain solutions face performance limitations for high-volume healthcare data.
• Existing systems struggle with latency and throughput, hindering practical application in real-time health record management.
• Ensuring data privacy and regulatory compliance (e.g., HIPAA) is paramount in healthcare blockchain implementations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and evaluate a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-accelerated Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain for secure and efficient healthcare data management.
• To quantify the performance improvements in throughput and latency compared to Central Processing Unit (CPU) mining and other blockchain platforms.
• To ensure the proposed blockchain design meets stringent healthcare data privacy regulations and security standards.

Main Methods:

• Developed a Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA)-optimized PoW algorithm leveraging GPU parallelism.
• Benchmarked the GPU-accelerated blockchain against Bitcoin, Ethereum (legacy PoW), and Hyperledger Fabric.
• Implemented off-chain storage (IPFS) for personal health data, ensuring "right to erasure" and HIPAA compliance.
• Integrated post-quantum cryptographic agility and Sybil attack mitigation strategies.

Main Results:

• Achieved throughput improvements of 5× to 100× and reduced block-formation latency compared to CPU mining.
• Demonstrated efficient processing of large health record payloads using GPU-accelerated Advanced Encryption Standard in Counter Mode (AES-CTR) in under one second.
• Validated the hypothesis that GPU parallelism significantly enhances blockchain speed for healthcare applications.
• Confirmed the design's ability to preserve data privacy and meet regulatory compliance requirements.

Conclusions:

• The CUDA-accelerated PoW blockchain design offers a practical and high-performance solution for secure healthcare data management.
• Significant improvements in throughput and latency make blockchain viable for high-volume health records.
• The framework successfully balances performance, security, privacy, and regulatory compliance for the healthcare sector.